THE HELLENICA 
 OXYRHYNCHIA 
 
 ITS 
 
 AUTHORSHIP AND AUTHORITY 
 
 BY 
 
 E. M. WALKER 
 
 FELLOW AND TUTOR OF QUEEN's COLLEGE, OXFORD 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1913 
 
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK 
 TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
A 33/5" 
 
 BERNARDO P. GRENFELL 
 
 ARTVRO S. HUNT 
 
 OLIM DISCIPVLIS lAM PEIDEM COLLEGIS 
 
 REGINENSIS EEGINENSIBVS 
 
 D. D. 
 
 HVNC LIBELLVM 
 
 SCRIPTOR 
 
 Qfii (\OA 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 LECTURE I 
 
 The literature of the controversy . . .15 
 
 LECTURE II 
 
 The current assumptions 27 
 
 LECTURE m 
 
 The case for Ephorus . . . . .49 
 
 LECTURE IV 
 
 The case against Ephorus examined. . . 79 
 
 LECTURE V 
 
 The credibility of the narrative . . .111 
 
 LECTURE VI 
 
 The Boeotian League 134 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The lectures which are co'ntained in this volume 
 were delivered in Michaelmas Term, 1912, at the 
 invitation of the Delegates of the Common University 
 Fund, to whom I am indebted for an opportunity of 
 giving expression to my views regarding the authorship 
 and historical value of the famous fragment, which has 
 come to be known (most unfortunately, in my judge- 
 ment) as the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia. But for the 
 invitation which they extended to me the lectures 
 would not have been given, nor the book written. 
 
 I wish to make it plain, in the first place, that the 
 lectures are what they profess to be — lectures. They 
 were delivered before they were written, and they were 
 delivered ex tempore, in the sense in which sermons are 
 said to be preached ex tempore ; that is, they were 
 delivered without the aid of manuscript .or notes. 
 Four out of the six were taken down by reporters, 
 and they are printed from the shorthand writers* 
 notes. A few changes have been made: occasional 
 repetitions have been struck out, clauses have been 
 sometimes transposed, a sentence here and there has 
 been touched up, once or twice an argument which 
 upon reflection ceased to satisfy me has been omitted, 
 and some additional references have been inserted ; but 
 if any of those who attended the course should do 
 me the honour to read the lectures in print, they are 
 
,8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 not likely to detect the alterations. The fifth lecture 
 was written out from memory. The last lecture did 
 not form part of the course. It was prepared, but 
 the time at my disposal did not allow of its delivery. 
 It has been delivered often enough, I fear, to my 
 college pupils across my table. 
 
 It is as lectures that I ask that they should be 
 judged. There is a substantial difference between a 
 lecture in the proper sense and a lecture in the con- 
 ventional sense ; by which I mean a chapter of a book 
 which is read aloud to a class. In the one case, the 
 lecture exists before the book ; in the other, the book 
 exists before the lecture. This is not the occasion on 
 which to argue which is the better as a lecture; all 
 that I am concerned to point out is that they are 
 different. The lecture proper owes its form to the 
 class, just as the lecture by convention owes its form 
 to the study and the desk. The class reacts upon 
 the lecturer : he is conscious of the presence of his 
 audience, and quick to mark the argument that misses 
 fire ; the * we ' and the ' you ' have a better right for 
 their appearance than that of a mere literary tradition ; 
 even the 'I* will be unduly prominent. If in the 
 present lectures the first person obtrudes itself more 
 often than I could wish, I trust that it may be read 
 as a note of intimacy, rather than of dogmatism. 
 
 They are intended, too, as lectures upon certain 
 clearly defined problems, not as a commentary upon 
 the whole contents of the fragment. A good deal 
 might be said on many subjects which I have left 
 untouched ; on Demaenetus, or Theban politics, or the 
 naval operations, or the eroy 6y8oov, The omissions 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 are designed : I have said nothing, either because a 
 discussion of these questions seem to me irrelevant 
 to the main issues, or else because I had nothing of 
 my own to say. Where I had nothing new to con- 
 tribute in the way of suggestion, argument, or criticism, 
 I preferred to say nothing. It is for the same reason 
 that I have contented myself with the briefest summary 
 of the arguments which were advanced in my article 
 in Klio. One of the strongest arguments for Ephorus is 
 to be found in the disproof of the case for Theopompus ; 
 this is a task which has been attempted in Klio, to 
 which I must refer my readers. 
 
 Nor have I discussed, explicitly at least, the claims 
 of Cratippus. It is not because I have been convinced 
 either that he is a phantom or a writer of the Alexan- 
 drine epoch that I have deserted his cause. I am 
 still prepared to assert for Cratippus all that I asserted 
 five years ago : a flesh-and-blood existence, a floruit 
 midway between Thucydides and Xenophon, Athenian 
 citizenship, and a range of subject from Cyzicus to 
 Cnidus ; eyo) fikv ovv 6 avrS^ €i/jll tjJ yvcofirj. And I still 
 infer from the fragment all, or almost all, the character- 
 istics which I claimed for P. If I no longer claim that 
 he is an Athenian (and I claimed it very doubtfully), 
 I claim that he is next door to an Athenian ; that he 
 was in closest touch with Athens. But on such funda- 
 mental questions as those of style, of date of composition, 
 and of political sympathies, I have nothing to retract. 
 I have thrown up my brief for Cratippus, not because 
 I can no longer contend against the weight of hostile 
 evidence, but, simply and solely, because I have ventured 
 to examine the current assumptions which were held 
 
10 INTRODUCTION 
 
 to bar the claim of Ephorus. The case for Cratippus 
 did not rest upon the positive evidence in his favour. 
 The positive evidence for an author who is referred to 
 less than half a dozen times in all, and whose fragments 
 sum up to less than a dozen lines, must necessarily be 
 slight. The argument by which I sought to establish 
 his identity with P. was deductive, rather than induc- 
 tive, and the case was, admittedly, strongest on its 
 negative side. If P. could not be Theopompus, he 
 must be Cratippus ; he must be, for there is no third 
 possibility. If once this premiss is denied ; if once it 
 can be established that neither the scale of P. nor his 
 oiKovofiia constitutes an insuperable objection to his 
 identification with Ephorus, the one strong argument 
 for Cratippus — the disjunctive one — disappears. P. 
 cannot be Theopompus, but he may be Ephorus or 
 Cratippus. And for Ephorus the positive evidence is 
 not slight, but ample. We know nothing about the 
 style of Cratippus, or his political standpoint, or his 
 sympathies and antipathies, or his intellectual level ; 
 though we know something of the scope of his work, 
 we know almost nothing of its contents. We cannot, 
 at any rate, test its coincidences with P. The opposite 
 of all this holds good of Ephorus. His literary style 
 and the temper of his mind, his political standpoint, 
 his choice of subjects and the order of his narrative, 
 even his actual phraseology, can all be verified. If any 
 of my readers find that the arguments which I have 
 adduced on all these various points are convincing, 
 I am fairly certain that they will not turn back to 
 reconsider the case for Cratippus. 
 
 In discussing the probable length of a book of 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 Ephorus, and of a line of Theopompus, I have not 
 thought it necessary to refer to the results arrived at 
 by Graux, in his paper on Stichometrie in the volume 
 of the Revue de Philologie for 1878, because it appeared 
 to me that his conclusions throw little light upon the 
 problems with which I was concerned. The hypothesis 
 of a standard arixo? of thirty-four to thirty-eight letters, 
 or fifteen to sixteen syllables (the mean length of the 
 hexameter line), has received no little confirmation 
 since Stichometrie first appeared ; but this confirmation 
 has not come from the science of Papyrology, which 
 was as yet unborn when the article was written. 
 A. a-TLxos of thirty-four to thirty-eight letters may have 
 been something more than an ideal standard by which 
 to compute the relative length of literary works, or the 
 due remuneration of the scribe ; the evidence suggests 
 that it must sometimes have been an actual standard 
 to which the copyist conformed. In our extant papyri, 
 however, so far from being a normal length, it is an 
 unusual one. This renders it certain that it was not 
 a Kavcou to , which the copyist was bound to conform, 
 or which invariably regulated the length of his line. 
 Hence, Graux's investigations do not serve to fix tlie 
 mean length of the eirrj of Theopompus ; we are not 
 compelled to assume for his Hellenica 150,000 lines 
 of thirty-four or thirty-eight letters apiece. In the 
 same way it is clear that Graux s average for the length 
 of a roll, 2,000 <ttl\ol, does not determine the length of 
 a book of Ephorus. His results, if valid at all, would 
 be more likely to be valid for the century of Diodorus 
 than for the century of Ephorus and Theopompus. 
 Yet some books of Diodorus contained many more than 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 2,000 (TTLxoL apiece : they must have run to two rolls or 
 more. Nor can we obtain a conclusive answer from 
 Papyrology. It can fix the maxima for the length of 
 a roll, for its height, for the number of lines in a column, 
 and for the number of letters in a line. But if the 
 ascertained length of a book of Diodorus, or of a book of 
 Poly bins, transcends the utmost capacity of a single roll, it 
 is evident that we cannot argue from the roll to the book. 
 There were books that occupied more than a single roll.^ 
 
 Since the delivery of these lectures, two further con- 
 tributions to the literature of the controversy have 
 come to hand. 
 
 The first of these is the first half of a paper by 
 Professor L. Pareti, of Florence, entitled Cratijppo e le 
 * Elleniche ' di Oxyrhynchos, which appeared in vol. xix 
 of the Studi italiani di Filologia Classica (1912), He 
 comes to the conclusion that Cratippus was an Athenian, 
 who wrote in the first half of the fourth century ; that 
 P. wrote between 371 and 356, that he began in the 
 Decelean War at least, and that his work was not a mere 
 continuation of Thucydides. The starting-point of the 
 €T09 oyBoov he puts in the autumn of 403. He accepts 
 the current assumptions as to the scale and method of 
 Ephorus, and he subscribes to the objections which have 
 been urged against Theopompus. Both the general 
 results at which he arrives, and the arguments by 
 which these results are reached, do not appear to difier 
 materially from the results and the arguments of my 
 article in Klio, 
 
 * I have no claim of any kind to speak with authority on such 
 questions. I have, however, had the advantage of discussing these 
 points with Professor Hunt. 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 The other contribution is of a much slighter character 
 in point of length ; it amounts to less than a page of 
 the Berliner philologische Wochenschrift (1912, No. 61). 
 The aim of the writer, P. Maas, is to establish the 
 identity of the style of the Hellenica of Theopompus 
 with that of his Philijpj^ica. His argument is based 
 upon those fragments of the Hellenica (21 (a), 14, and 22, 
 G. and H.) which alone afford a test of style. In all of 
 these he claims that the closest similarity with the style 
 of the Phili^^ica is to be traced. 21 (a) furnishes much 
 the best evidence in support of his contention. Quite 
 apart from the general impression left by the fragment, 
 the use of (paurja-iTai, to which Maas calls attention, is 
 strongly in his favour. It is an unmistakable note of 
 the artificial rhetoric of the age ; we meet it frequently 
 elsewhere (e. g. in one of the most famous passages in 
 the Panegyricus), and it occurs no less than three times 
 in the fragments of the Philij^j^ica (119, 121, 244). The 
 importance of Maas's contribution is not to be measured 
 by its length. He has shown that the evidence, so far 
 as it extends, goes to prove that the style of the 
 Hellenica was cast in the same rhetorical mould as that 
 of the Philipj^ica. The form of the non-Isocratean 
 Theopompus of the Hellenica, not too substantial to 
 start with, has become more phantom-like than ever. 
 
 It is significant that both the writers whose contri- 
 butions have appeared since the delivery of the lectures 
 are recruits to the cause of Cratippus. I had even 
 better reason than I suspected for the assertion that 
 the dissentients had not been silenced. If we are to go 
 by counting heads, the cause of Theopompus is a lost one. 
 As these sheets were passing through the press, an 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 article by F. Rlilil, entitled Bandglossen zu den Hellenika 
 von Oxyrhynchos, appeared in the Rheinisches Museum} 
 On the question of authorship, Rtihl has a suggestion — 
 Anaximenes — but no arguments. He is, however, to 
 be counted among the opponents of Theopompus. The 
 article is chiefly concerned with Agesilaus' first campaign 
 in 395 and the battle of Sardis. Some of the criticisms 
 of Xenophon's narrative are new, and deserving of 
 consideration. 
 
 My sincere thanks are due to Miss Lorimer, of 
 Somerville College, who most kindly undertook the 
 task of reading through the proof-sheets. 
 
 1 Bd. Ixviii (1913). 
 
LECTURE I 
 
 THE LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY 
 
 Five years have now elapsed since the publication, in 
 the famous fifth volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri, of 
 the fragments of a new Greek historian. And just four 
 years have elapsed since any contribution to the dis- 
 cussion of the subject has appeared in English, so far as 
 I am aware. Yet during these four years — we may take 
 the meeting of the International Congress for Historical 
 Studies, which was held at Berlin in August, 1908, 
 as a definite point from which to reckon — much has 
 been written upon the Continent, and a good deal of that 
 which has appeared is of much importance. I venture 
 therefore to think that I should have been justified in 
 accepting the invitation of the Delegates of the Common 
 University Fund to deliver these lectures, even if I had 
 set before myself no more ambitious task than that of 
 stock-taking ; even if I had nothing new to contribute 
 in the way of hypothesis or argument, and if all that 
 I had set before myself was the work of description, 
 criticism, and comparison. It appears to me, hoVever, 
 that the appearance, a year ago, of Judeich's article ^ in 
 the Eheinisches Museum, constitutes a new phase of the 
 controversy. I do not know how it may strike other 
 people, but to me, at any rate, it seems clear that in 
 the immediate future the controversy must proceed 
 upon the lines that he has indicated, no matter whether 
 we agree or disagree with his conclusions. 
 
 ^ W. Judeich, * Theopomps HelleniJca,* Rheinisclies Museum^ Levi 
 (1911), pp. 94 ff. 
 
16 LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY i 
 
 The plan which I propose to follow — and I think it 
 will prove to be the most convenient plan — is to start 
 by giving a brief account of the principal contributions 
 to the discussion of this subject which have appeared 
 since the epoch which I have taken as my starting- 
 point — the meeting of the Congress at Berlin. 
 
 First in order of importance, though not in order of 
 time, comes Meyer's book,^ which appeared the year after 
 the Congress. The first in point of date, however, was 
 an article by Mr. Underhill,^ in the Journal of Hellenic 
 Studies, which appeared in October, 1908, a few months 
 after the Congress. Next, in the Bheinisches Museum 
 of 1909 there appeared an article by a writer, who, I 
 fancy, is a comparatively young student, A. von Mess, 
 of Bonn, which deals with the relations between the 
 New Historian and certain passages in Xenophon and 
 Diodorus. In 1910 Busolt published an article in 
 Hermes, entitled Zur Glauhwilrdigkeit Theopomjos.^ 
 Lastly, in 1911 there appeared two further contributions 
 to the literature of the subject. The first of these is an 
 article by Judeich (so well known to us by his work on 
 Asia Minor), called, somewhat misleadingly, Theopomps 
 HelleniJca, to which I have already referred ; the second 
 is to be found in the section on Greek History in the third 
 
 1 E. Meyer, Theopomps HelleniTm, 1909. 
 
 ^ G. E. ijnderhill, ^Theopompus (or Cratippus), Hellenka,' J, H. S. 
 xxviii (1908), 277 ff. 
 
 ^ W. A. Bauer, Die spartanischen Nauarchen der Jahre 397/95 
 (Wiener Studien, xxxii. 1910), does not discuss the question of 
 authorship, but the article has some bearing on the question of 
 authority. The same remark applies to Glotz's monograph on the 
 Boeotian Councils. Among articles dealing with minor points, some 
 of which have a bearing upon the question of authorship and 
 authority, I may mention U. Wilcken, Ein Theopompfragment in 
 den neuen HelleniJca, Hermes, xliii (1908), p. 475 ; E. Jacoby, Klio, 
 ix (1909), p. 97 ; C. F. Lehmann-Haupt, Klio, viii (1908), p, 265. 
 
I LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY 17 
 
 volume of Gercke und Norden's Einleitung,^ which is 
 from the pen of Professor Lehmann-Haupt, whom, I am 
 glad to say, England has annexed from Germany, and 
 Liverpool from Berlin, since the meeting of the Con- 
 gress. There remain to be mentioned three articles of 
 considerable importance, which have an indirect bearing 
 upon the subject. All these three articles are con- 
 cerned with Ephorus, and all three appeared in Hermes. 
 In the volume for 1909 there appeared two articles, 
 the one being in answer to the other. The first article, 
 Wann hat Ejphoros sein Geschichtswerk geschrieben? 
 was by B. Niese ; the answer to this, Die Zeit des 
 E^phoros, was by E. Schwartz. In the volume of 
 Hermes for 1911 there appeared an article in two parts 
 by a student of a younger generation, R. Laqueur, of 
 Strassburg — a writer whose articles are distinguished 
 rather by their minute learning than by the lucidity of 
 their style. 
 
 Meyer's book, I7ieo^om2Js Helleniha, is not entirely, 
 nor even mainly, concerned with the question of author- 
 ship. Out of one hundred and fifty pages, some thirty 
 are occupied with the question of authorship, one hundred 
 with the discussion of the subject-matter, and twenty with 
 further subsidiary questions. It would be impertinent in 
 me to dwell upon the great importance of this work, and 
 of its contribution towards the study of the subject ; but 
 I venture to think that its importance lies rather in the 
 hundred pages which are devoted to a discussion of the 
 subject-matter than in the thirty pages which deal with 
 the question of authorship. It does not appear to me 
 that anything has been contributed in these pages that 
 is at once fresh and material. I fail to see that the 
 
 * Gercke u. Norden, Einleittmg in die Altertumstcissenschaft, 
 Bd. iii, p. 89. 
 
 /J 
 
18 LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY i 
 
 case for Theopompus is in any degree a stronger case 
 than it was as presented by the original editors of the 
 fragment in the fifth volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri. 
 Those who were already convinced will remain convinced; 
 but those who were unconvinced have not had their 
 doubts removed. We are still confronted with the same 
 old diflSculties — the difficulties as to style, as to date, as 
 to political opinions, and as to the relations of P. to 
 Ephorus,^ and of Theopompus to Xenophon. In explana- 
 tion of the difficulty as to style, we are presented with 
 an hypothesis which becomes, I think (and I am certainly 
 not speaking for myself only), less attractive the more 
 we study it — the hypothesis of the two Theopompuses : 
 the youthful Theopompus, the author of the Hellenica, 
 and the mature Theopompus, the author of the Philippica; 
 the young Theopompus dominated by the influence of 
 Thucydides, and the mature Theopompus dominated 
 by the influence of Isocrates. The hypothesis of a 
 Thucydidean Theopompus as the author of the Hellenica 
 does not become more plausible when it turns out that 
 there is nothing Thucydidean about the Thucydidean 
 Theopompus, save the chronological scheme of the 
 narrative. Except in ' the summers and winters of the 
 war', there is not a trace of the influence of Thucydides 
 to be found. Further, this hypothetical Theopompus is 
 marked by those qualities or characteristics which we 
 associate with age rather than with youth ; he is scientific, 
 he is cautious, he is dull. Yet the young Theopompus, 
 not of hypothesis but of history, was at the age of 
 twenty-four— at an age when, on Meyer's hypothesis, 
 he had not yet written the Hellenica — a past-master in 
 
 ^ In accordance with a usage which the Editors have rendered 
 classical, P. is employed throughout these lectures to denote the 
 author of the fragment. 
 
I LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY 19 
 
 the art of rhetoric. I need not, perhaps, insist any 
 further on the argument from style, for it has been 
 urged again and again since the first publication of the 
 fragment; nor on another difficulty, the difficulty of 
 date : the impossibility, on the one hand, of supposing 
 that Theopompus wrote the Hellenica at the age of 
 twenty-two, and, on the other hand, if you assume a 
 later date for its composition, the conflict which then 
 residts between the internal evidence of the papyrus and 
 your hypothesis. I will content myself with saying that 
 the arguments which I ventured to put forward in my 
 article in Klio,^ in favour of a date earlier than 356 B.C., 
 have been reinforced by another argument derived from 
 the policy of the Persian kings. ^ There still remains, 
 too, the difficulty of having to assume that Ephorus 
 wrote his History some considerable time after Theo- 
 pottipus wrote his Hellenica, There still remains the 
 difficulty which is involved in Porphyry's charge of 
 plagiarism ; " for few will find it probable, either that 
 Porphyry was generalizing for a single instance {noWh 
 Tov B^i'ocpoovTos avTov fieTaTiBivra KaT€L\T](pa), or that Theo- 
 pompus, while intentionally diverging from Xenophon 
 everywhere else, should have felt himself compelled to 
 follow him in the one instance of the interview between 
 Agesilaus and Pharnabazus. Lastly, of course, we are 
 still confronted with the difficulty arising out of the 
 writer s political views and sympathies. Theopompus, 
 we know, was anti- Athenian in his sympathies, aristo-» 
 cratic in his bias, and an enthusiastic admirer of 
 Agesilaus : it passes the wit of man to discover any 
 
 ' ' Cratippus or TJieopompus?' Klio, Bd. viii (1908), pp. 356-71. 
 - See Judeich, Bhein. Mtcs., 1911, p. 98. 
 
 ^ Porphyry ap. Eusebius, Praep. Evang.y p. 465 b-c (=Theopomp, 
 23, G, and H.). 
 
 b2 
 
20 LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY i 
 
 of those characteristics in P. So far as he has an 
 enthusiasm for anybody, it is for Conon rather than 
 Agesilaus. And therefore I venture to think that the 
 argument in favour of Theopompus, so far as it is an 
 inductive argument, remains where it was. The strength 
 of the argument is, as it always was, deductive, not 
 inductive. With regard to the question of authority, 
 the attitude adopted by Meyer is one of compromise. 
 He is convinced that Theopompus had before him, not 
 only in our papyrus fragment, but in those passages of 
 Diodorus which are assumed to have come ultimately 
 from Theopompus, through the medium of Ephorus (e.g. 
 the campaign of Thibron, and the Spartan invasion of 
 Elis), excellent material, of which, however, he occasion- 
 ally made far from an intelligent use. For the naval 
 warfare, for instance, Meyer is prepared to accept the 
 whole account. On the other hand, in regard to the 
 campaign of Thibron, in 399, and the Spartan invasion 
 of Elis, he thinks that Xenophon is right and Theopompus 
 wrong. In the case of Thibron, his explanation is that 
 Theopompus applied to the campaign of 399 the genuine 
 incidents of Thibron's later campaign in 3 91, the campaign 
 which centred round Magnesia. In the case of the 
 invasion of Elis, the suggestion is that Theopompus 
 substituted for the narrative of the main operations a 
 perfectly correct account of subsidiary operations. 
 That there were such subsidiary operations is, of 
 course, pure assumption; there is not a scrap of proof 
 that can be adduced. It will be observed that Meyer 
 makes some very serious concessions to Busolt. He 
 admits, in the first place, that Theopompus was 
 acquainted with Xenophon's Hellenics, and that his 
 object was to supersede the Hellenics — which is precisely 
 Busolt's position. And two further points which he 
 
1 LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY 21 
 
 concedes are very important points indeed. Both in 
 the war with Elis, and in the campaign of Thibron, 
 he admits that Theopompus is wrong and Xenophon 
 right. 
 
 Mr. UnderhilVs article is concerned, firstly, with the 
 question of authorship, and secondly, with the deter- 
 mination of two points of great importance. The first 
 of these is the epoch from which the ho? SySoou^ near the 
 beginning of column iii (ch. iv) of the pap}Tns, is 
 reckoned ; the second is the question of the scope of 
 R's work. On the question of authorship, while 
 Mr. Underbill is entirely against the claims of Theo- 
 pompus, he refuses to accept those of Cratippus. Like 
 Fuhr, who has contributed not a little to the textual 
 criticism of the fragment, he falls back, if I may 
 borrow ' a phrase from the original editors, upon an 
 attitude of pure agnosticism. With regard to the 
 starting-point of the ero? 6y8oov, he maintains, against 
 the Editors, that it was the year 402, and not the year 
 403 ; while with regard to the scope of the work, he 
 maintains that it started from this year 402, and that it 
 was not intended as a continuation of the work of 
 Thucydides. As will appear subsequently, I disagree 
 with many of his conclusions ; but his article would be of 
 great importance, if for no other reason than this. He was, 
 so far as I am aware, the first writer who seriously called 
 in question the assumption upon which all other theories 
 have been based — that the starting-point of the work was 
 the moment when Thucydides left off ; i. e. that the work 
 started at the end of 411, and that it was intended as 
 a continuation of Thucydides. He also calls in question 
 the assumed terminus ad qicem, the battle of Cnidus 
 (394 B.C.). Everybody else had assumed that the work 
 began in 411 and ended in 394, 
 
23 LITEKATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY i 
 
 Von Mess's article is concerned with four subj ects. ^ He 
 deals with the campaign of Thibron in 399, the two cam- 
 paigns of Agesilaus in 395, and the outbreak of the war 
 between Phocis and Boeotiain 395 . As to the first of these, 
 the campaign of Thibron, he endeavours to explain the dis- 
 crepancies between Diodorus' account, which is supposed 
 to go back ultimately to P., and Xenophon's by the 
 assumption that Diodorus is recounting operations con- 
 ducted by Thibron before he had been reinforced by the 
 Ten Thousand. With regard to the first campaign of 
 Agesilaus and the outbreak of the war between the 
 Phocians and Thebans, he decides altogether in favour 
 of P., as against Xenophon. With regard to the second 
 campaign of Agesilaus, the autumn campaign, he admits 
 that there are inaccuracies in P., but he regards them as 
 of minor importance. Of these four positions, the first, 
 his theory of Thibron's campaign, has been conclusively 
 disproved by Meyer, by the aid of a chronological argu- 
 ment, which is based on a comparison of the data afforded 
 by the Anabasis with those supplied by the Hellenics of 
 Xenophon. The other points raised in this article have 
 been discussed more fully both by Meyer and by Judeich. 
 The article, taken as a whole, may not unfairly be de- 
 scribed as suggestive, but shght. 
 
 It will be remembered that in the early part of 1908, 
 that is to say, before the meeting of the Congress, 
 Busolt had published an article in Hermes , in which, 
 while accepting the authorship of Theopompus, he seeks 
 to explain the discrepancies between P. and Xenophon 
 by the assumption that Theopompus' sole object was to 
 supersede Xenophon's work. Theopompus, he contends, 
 had Xenophon's Hellenics before him, but, unfortunately, 
 
 ^ In justice to him I should point out that his article was in 
 print before the appearance of Meyer's Hellenika. 
 
I LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY 28 
 
 nothing more than the IlellenicSy except on certain points, 
 such as the naval operations ; consequently, he proceeded 
 by the simple method of writing * Yes ' where Xenophon 
 wrote * No ', and * No ' where Xenophon wrote * Yes ' — 
 a method which has enabled him occasionally to arrive 
 at the truth without intending it. In his article Zur 
 GlauhwUrdigkeit Theo^omj)8 he returns to the charge. 
 He deals with Meyer's attempt to rescue the reputation 
 of Theopompus in regard to certain episodes, such as the 
 invasion of Elis, the campaign of Thibron, and the battle 
 of Sardis. His decision is given in favour of Xenophon 
 on all three occasions. Theopompus' sole motive was 
 vanity, and his sole source the inner consciousness. 
 I am bound to say that, as against Meyer, the polemic 
 is not ineiFective. 
 
 Professor Lehmann-Haupt adds his contribution to 
 the discussion of the subject in two different passages in 
 the third volume of Gercke und Norden's Einleitung. 
 In the first of these (p. 89) he deals with Cratippus, 
 and discusses the question whether he is a phantom, or 
 real flesh and blood. He decides in favour of flesh and 
 blood. In the second passage (pp. 114-117) he treats of 
 the Oxyrhynchus papyrus and its authorship. The con- 
 clusion at which he arrives is that the work is that of 
 Cratippus, who is an earlier writer than Theopompus, 
 and an Athenian. He suggests, however, that Theo- 
 pompus may have used Cratippus, and that in this way 
 the coincidences between P. and Theopompus may be 
 explained. 
 
 Lastly, we come to Judeich's article. He summarizes 
 with some skill the objections that have been advanced 
 against the authorship of Theopompus, but he contributes 
 to the argument nothing that is really novel, except, 
 perhaps, his point about the policy of the Persian kings. 
 
24 LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY i 
 
 in its bearing on the date. The importance of the article 
 consists in this, that he has the courage to say quite 
 boldly that P. is Ephorus. The great merit of the article 
 is that the writer has indicated the weakness of the 
 assumptions upon which the ordinary position rests ; 
 the defect of the article is that he is very far indeed 
 from having established his own positions. 
 
 As to the other three articles on Ephorus, I shall not 
 say much about them at this point, because I shall have 
 a good deal to say about them later on. Niese's article 
 is an attempt to establish the later of the two alternative 
 dates which have been suggested for the composition of 
 Ephorus' work. He seeks to prove that it was com- 
 posed after the death of Alexander, i. e. after 323 ; 
 whereas the other view (represented, e.g., by Schwartz) 
 is that it was composed between the year 350 and the 
 accession of Alexander, and nearer to 350 than 336. 
 Niese's position is based upon two arguments. In the 
 first place, he points to the occurrence in the fragments 
 of Ephorus of references to events which are later than 
 the accession or the death, as the case may be, of 
 Alexander ; secondly, he argues that Ephorus carried 
 his work down to the siege of Perinthus in 341, in 
 opposition to the view that he carried down his work 
 only as far as the outbreak of the Sacred War in 356. 
 Schwartz's article aims at a refutation of both Niese's 
 arguments. The references to events later than the 
 date of Alexander s accession or death are explained 
 away on the hypothesis that they occurred in the 
 thirtieth book, which was the work, not of Ephorus 
 himself, but of his son Demophilus. Schwartz's fire, how- 
 ever, is concentrated upon Niese's main position, that 
 Ephorus himself carried his work down to the year 341. 
 I should have been disposed to say that Schwartz's 
 
I LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY 25 
 
 refutation of Niese's interpretation of the famous passage 
 in Diodorus ^ was complete and final, had it not been that 
 the next writer of whom I come to speak apparently 
 finds Niese's arguments convincing. However, this is 
 a subject on which I shall have much to say in a later 
 lecture. Laqueur's article, it will be seen subsequently, 
 is of great importance in connexion with this question. 
 He seeks to prove that the prefaces which Diodorus 
 composed for each of his books are derived from, or are 
 excerpts from, the Trpooifna of Ephorus. Ephorus was 
 the first historian of antiquity of whom it can be said 
 with certainty that he divided his work into books, the 
 division into books of the works of earlier writers being 
 commonly supposed to date from the Alexandrine 
 period. Diodorus tells us, not only that Ephorus 
 divided his History into books, but that he prefixed 
 a irpooifjLLou to each book.^ Laqueur maintains that we 
 have the substance of certain of these irpooifiLa in the 
 prefaces of Diodorus. It is evident that this contention, 
 if it can be sustained, has an important bearing upon 
 the question of the arrangement, the scope, and the 
 method of Ephorus' work. 
 
 We are now in a position to sum up the views which 
 have been expressed on the question of authorship, and 
 to attempt to strike a balance. To do this, it is clear 
 that we must go back to the first publication of the 
 Papyrus. For Theopompus we have Meyer, Busolt, 
 Wilamowitz, Schwartz, Wilcken, and Laqueur.^ Perhaps 
 we must add the Editors themselves. And that, of 
 course, is an enormous weight of opinion. On the other 
 hand, against Theopompus we have, among German 
 
 1 XVI. 14. 3. 
 
 ^ Diodorus XVI. 76. 5. 
 
 ^ This is, I fancy, a certain inference from Laqueur's aiiicle. 
 
26 LITERATURE OF THE CONTROVERSY i 
 
 scholars, Blass, Dittenberger, Jacoby, Fuhr, Judeich, 
 W. A. Bauer, Lehmann-Haupt, and Belocb ; ^ in Italy, 
 de Sanctis ; ^ and among writers in English practically 
 everybody, except (a serious exception) the Editors ; 
 e.g. Mr. Underbill, Professor Bury, and Mr. Goligher. 
 Of those who are against Theopompus, the majority are 
 in favour of Cratippus. The only writer in favour of 
 Ephorus is Judeich.^ From this survey two conclusions 
 emerge pretty clearly. The first is^ this ; that in spite 
 of this great weight of authority, in a country in which 
 authority of that kind counts for much, the voice of the 
 doubters is not hushed. And the doubt is most loudly 
 expressed precisely among the younger scholars. If the 
 case for Theopompus were overwhelming, you would 
 expect that by this time everybody would be agreed, 
 just as everybody is agreed as to the authorship of the 
 'AOrjuaicDi^ iroXLTeta. Everybody is now agreed that Aristotle 
 is its author ; yet I can remember when there was a very 
 strong opposition to this view, but that opposition 
 has long been silenced.* And the second is this ; 
 that in the recent literature it has become more and 
 more evident that the solution of the problem is to be 
 found in the discussion of the claims of Ephorus. Con- 
 sciously or unconsciously, writer after writer has been 
 led to concentrate his attention upon this question, and 
 in the most recent articles Ephorus bulks largely. 
 
 ^ P. Maas and F. Ruhl may now be added to this list. Beloch 
 merely states his conclusion that P. is Cratippus (Bd. i, p. 28 of 
 the second edition, 1912): a discussion of the question is promised 
 in the second volume when it appears. 
 
 ^ And Pareti. 
 
 * The idea that P. might be Ephorus had occurred to W. A. 
 Bauer before the publication of Judeich's article. See Die spar- 
 tanischen Nauarchen der Jahre 397/95. 
 
 * Perhaps I should have said ' been silent '. One or two 
 scholars in our own country appear to be still unconvinced. 
 
LECTUKE II. 
 
 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 
 
 In the last lecture I expressed an opinion that the 
 real argument in favour of Theopompus was not an 
 inductive argument, but a deductive argument : a deduc- 
 tive argument which, like all deductive arguments, 
 assumes certain premisses. The premisses are these : 
 firstly, that the Papyrus is a fragment of a work on an 
 elaborate scale that dealt with the period from 411 to 
 394 ; secondly, that the author must have been a writer 
 of eminence, otherwise he would not have been copied 
 in a country-town in Egypt, in the third century A. d. ; 
 and thirdly, that the Hellenica of Theopompus is the 
 only work that satisfies both these conditions. Given 
 these premisses, the conclusion is, of course, inevitable. 
 The Papyrus must be a fi:^gment of Theopompus' 
 Hellenica. There is, I believe, a school of logicians 
 which maintains that the apodeictic judgement possesses 
 less force than the assertorial. 
 
 These assumptions, these premisses from which the 
 argument starts, I now propose to examine. 
 
 The first assumption to be examined is that which 
 relates to the scope of the work. Mr. Underbill has 
 endeavoured to prove that the starting-point of the 
 work was the year 402, from which the €tos oyBoov is 
 reckoned. It had been argued by the Editors, against 
 any such position, that the phrase which occurs twice 
 over^ in the Papyrus, axnr^p eipTjKd nov Kal irp6T€pov, in 
 
 * Ch. ii, § 4 ; in a slightly varied form in ch. xii, § 1. 
 
28 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 reference to events which fall within the last period of 
 the Peloponnesian War, proves conclusively that the 
 writer had dealt with the period between 411 and the 
 end of the War in an earlier part of his work. 
 Mr. Underhill thinks that it does not. In this I cannot 
 agree with him. To my mind the Editors' argument 
 is convincing. The occurrence of this phrase, however, 
 does not involve the year 411 as the starting-point. It 
 would be consistent with an earlier, indeed with a much 
 earlier terminus a quo. In order to prove that 411 was 
 the starting-point, it is necessary either to produce 
 evidence that P. did not include the period before 411 
 in his work, or else to prove from considerations of some 
 other kind that he could not have included it. Proof 
 of the former kind is clearly not available, and the 
 indirect proof is far from conclusive. It is argued that 
 as there are references in P. to incidents in the history 
 of the War which are earlier than 411, and as the 
 formula coa-nep dpr^Koi ttov kol irporepov is not employed in 
 connexion with these references, it follows that the 
 earlier part of the War cannot have been included 
 within the scope of the work. I admit that P. was not 
 a stylist, but I think he was enough of a stylist to feel 
 that such a formula was not indispensable on every 
 occasion. With regard to the terminus ad quern, there 
 is no sort of proof that it was the year 394. So that, if 
 you set aside the argument based upon the absence of 
 this phrase axnrep eiprjKa ttov koI irpoTepov, or of any 
 corresponding phrase, the sole basis for this momentous 
 assumption, that the scope of the work was the period 
 from 411 to 394, is a deductive argument, derived from 
 the scale of the work. It is argued that a work so 
 elaborate, and so detailed, cannot have covered a longer 
 period than seventeen years. If onee the validity of 
 
II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 29 
 
 this argument can be impugned (my reasons for 
 impugning it will appear later), then it follows that 
 the main argument for identifying P. with Theopompus 
 disappears ; and also, of course, the main argument 
 for identifying P.'s work with any continuation of 
 Thucydides. The terminus a quo may be any year 
 you please before 411, and the terminus ad quern, any 
 year down to 356.^ Our choice of authors is enlarged ; 
 but there is only one whose claims can come into serious 
 consideration, and that one is Ephorus. 
 
 What then are the arguments that have led all 
 scholars hitherto, with the exception of Judeich, to 
 exclude the claims of Ephorus from consideration? 
 Everybody who was shown the Papyrus, before its 
 publication, at once jumped to the conclusion that it 
 was Ephorus. It was only upon reflection that they 
 were convinced that it could not be Ephorus ; and they 
 were convinced by two considerations — the scale, and 
 the method of the work. As to the scale, it was 
 assumed by everybody (and it was this argument that 
 convinced Blass, whose first instinct was to identify it 
 with Ephorus) that the scale of P. was far too elaborate 
 to be that of the scale of a universal history. As to 
 the method, it was argued that Ephorus could not have 
 written synchronistically and annalistically. That view 
 had been stated very emphatically by Schwartz in the 
 article on Ephorus in Pauly-Wissowa's Beal-Encyclo- 
 padie — an opinion which carries the more weight, 
 because the article was written before the discovery of 
 P., and is therefore free from all suspicion of contro- 
 versial motive. Schwartz goes so far as to say that 
 the one thing that is inconceivable is that Ephorus 
 
 * Or, on Meyer's view of the internal evidence of the date, down 
 to 346. 
 
30 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 could have written annalist ically or synchronistically.^ 
 Laqueur expresses himself with equal confidence — 
 *Ephorus, der niemals synchronistische Geschichte 
 gegeben hatte.' ^ Now what is the evidence for this 
 assumption ? In the first place, there is the well- 
 known statement of Diodorus^ that Ephorus wrote 
 according to subject (/cara yivos) ; and it is assumed 
 that to write Kara yivos excludes the possibility of 
 writing annalistically or synchronistically ; in other 
 words, that it excludes such a form of composition as 
 we find in P. In the second place, this statement of 
 Diodorus' appears to be confirmed by the phenomena 
 presented by Diodorus* work itself. It is all very well 
 for Judeich to say that we have no evidence that 
 Ephorus wrote Kara yivos ; I venture to think that we 
 have conclusive evidence. You have only to turn to 
 Book XI of Diodorus, where he is dealing with the 
 earlier half of the period between the Persian and the 
 Peloponnesian Wars, in order to find three sufficient 
 proofs of this contention. Under the year 477/6 * he 
 narrates the history of Pausanias, from his assuming 
 the command of the Panhellenic fleet in 478 down to 
 his death; that is to say, he compresses the events of 
 some eight years into one year. The only explanation 
 that can be suggested is that he found the whole story 
 narrated in Ephorus, in one section just as we find it 
 narrated in Diodorus. Similarly, the history of 
 Themistocles, from the first charge of medism brought 
 against him by the Spartans, before his ostracism, down 
 
 ^ Pauly-Wissowa's Beal-Encydopadiej Bd. vi, ' Ephorus,'' 
 "" Hermes, 1911, p. 323. 
 
 V. 1 Twv yap jSijSkwv €Kai(TTr}v TTCTTony/cc irepUx^Lv Kara yivos ras 
 TTpdicts. 
 
 * Ch. U and 45. 
 
11 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 31 
 
 to his death, is narrated under the single year 471/70.^ 
 Once more, the narrative in question covers a space of 
 several years; a fact which can only be explained on 
 the hypothesis that Diodorus found all the events that 
 he here describes in one continuous section in Ephorus. 
 The most striking example of all, however, is to be 
 found in the next year, 470/69, where the campaigns 
 of Cimon, from his appointment to the command of the 
 fleet in the Hellespont down to the battle of the 
 Eurymedon — a period at any rate of some eight years — 
 are all narrated under a single archonship. What, how- 
 ever, has been overlooked is this consideration — that 
 what we are concerned with is not the question of the 
 scale of Ephorus' work in any part of it, or the method 
 of his work in any part of it, but a much simpler one : 
 What was the scale of Ephorus' work, and what w^as 
 his method, for this period of his history; i.e., for the 
 opening years of the fourth century 1 
 
 The questions therefore that await an answer may be 
 formulated as follows. Firstly, What was the scale of 
 Ephorus' work for the fourth century ? This will be 
 found to involve the two further questions, What was 
 the scope of his eighteenth book, of which P. must be 
 a fragment, if it is a fragment of any part of Ephorus ? 
 and. What was the probable length of a book of 
 Ephorus 1 When these two questions have been 
 answered, another question will remain : What would 
 have been the probable length of P., if we had P. intact 
 for the period covered by the eighteenth book of 
 Ephorus 1 The last question to be considered is this : 
 How far is it possible to determine the scale upon which 
 Ephorus wrote, from a comparison of Ephorus with 
 Xenophon, where we can compare them? When we 
 : ' Ch. 54-58. 
 
32 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS n 
 
 have answered all these questions, we shall be in 
 a better position to decide the question of author- 
 ship. 
 
 What then was the scale of Ephorus' work for the 
 fourth century 1 The fragments of Ephorus which 
 relate to the fourth century are, unfortunately, few in 
 number, and it is only in comparatively few of these 
 that the book is given. It is no easy matter, therefore, 
 to determine the scope of this particular book. We 
 can, however, arrive at a general idea of the number 
 of years covered by a given number of books. In 
 Book XVII of Ephorus, as we learn from Diodorus,^ 
 the death of Alcibiades was described. His death 
 occurred in the Attic year 404/3. It is not at all 
 clear, however, from the passage in Diodorus that the 
 death of Alcibiades may not have been narrated in 
 connexion with the expedition of the Ten Thousand 
 (401 B.C.), by way of a digression. The only difference 
 that this would make would be that, in the one case, 
 the year 404/3 must be included in Book XVII, 
 whereas, in the other case, the terminus a quo of the 
 book might conceivably be a year or two later. In 
 Book XVIII Ephorus narrated the campaign of 
 Dercylidas,^ in 399 ; in Book XX the SioiKia-fios of 
 Mantinea, in the year 385.^ In Book XXV he narrated 
 the battle of Mantinea, in 362.* I think there can be 
 little doubt that the battle of Mantinea formed the 
 ending of Book XXV. It follows that we get for 
 a period of forty years, or possibly forty-two years, 
 some eight books ; which gives an average of a little 
 over five years for a book. There is no reason to think 
 that Sicilian affairs were dealt with in these books ; it 
 
 1 XIV. 11. 2. ' Fragm. 130. 
 
 3 Fragm. 138. * Fragm. 146 a. 
 
II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 88 
 
 is probable that they dealt solely with the afiairs of 
 Greece. After the battle of Mantinea, it seems as if the 
 scale became larger. Apparently not more than two or 
 three years were covered in each of the later books. This 
 is, I think, a pretty certain conclusion. If this is so, his 
 treatment of his subject must have become fuller as he 
 came nearer to his own time. You will find the evidence 
 summarized in Schwartz's article on Ephorus, or in my 
 own paper in Klio} Taking these data as affording 
 a rough indication, we might assume that a book of 
 Ephorus which included the year 395, which forms the 
 subject of our fragment, would probably include at least 
 four years, and might include five, but hardly more than 
 five. Of course, this would be quite a rough estimate. 
 
 Let us now attempt to determine more precisely the 
 limits of Book XVIII of Ephorus. 
 
 Harpocration tells us^ that the Athenian general 
 Hieronymus was mentioned by Ephorus in Book XVIII, 
 and again in Book XIX. Hieronymus occurs both in 
 P. and in Diodorus ; in P. (ch. x. 2) in connexion with 
 the revolution at Khodes, and in Diodorus (XIV. 81) 
 in connexion with Conon's visit to Babylon. Hence 
 Book XVIII certainly included the year 395. Two 
 explanations are possible in regard to the mention of 
 his name in Book XIX. The occasion may be iden- 
 tical with that in Diodorus; i.e. it may be the visit 
 of Conon to Babylon towards the end of 395. This 
 might suggest that the dividing line between Books 
 XVIII and XIX is to be drawn between the mention 
 of Hieronymus in P., in the earlier half of 395, and 
 the mention of liim by Diodorus, towards the end of the 
 same year. If this inference were correct, it would be 
 
 * Klio, viii (1908). ' Ephorus, Fragm. 135. 
 
34 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS n 
 
 a probable conclusion that Book XVIII of Ephorus 
 terminated with the end of Agesilaus' second campaign, 
 when he went into winter quarters late in 395, the 
 point at which P. breaks off. If we confine ourselves 
 to this evidence alone, that would be quite a possible 
 ending for the eighteenth book of Ephorus. On other 
 grounds, however, as you will see later, it is not a probable 
 ending. The alternative explanation connects the 
 mention of his name in Book XIX with a passage in 
 the Hellenics of Xenophon,^ in which Nicophemus, who 
 is coupled with Hieronymus both in P. and Diodorus, 
 is stated to have been appointed by Pharnabazus and 
 Conon as harmost of Cythera, during the operations in 
 the Aegean in 393. It is quite possible that Hieronymus 
 played a part, as well as Nicophemus, in these opera- 
 tions : and it is possible, therefore, that Ephorus 
 mentioned Hieronymus in Book XIX in this context. 
 If so, we get the dividing line between Books XVIII 
 and XIX somewhere between 395 and 393, and that is 
 much the more probable conclusion ; only, of course, 
 there is direct evidence for Hieronymus at the end of 
 395, while there is no actual evidence for him in 393. 
 It is merely a conjecture that he may have been associated 
 with Nicophemus in the operations of that year. For 
 the terminus a quo of the book Judeich suggests the 
 dispatch of Dercylidas to Asia Minor in the latter part 
 of 399, and for the terminus ad quern the battle of 
 Cnidus. This terminus ad quern has been very generally 
 accepted ; e. g. by Schwartz. I venture, however, to 
 think that both suggestions are erroneous ; I cannot 
 accept either the terminus a quo or the terminus ad 
 quern. About the terminus a quo there can hardly 
 
 ' IV. 8. 8. 
 
11 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 35 
 
 be a doubt that it cannot be the dispatch of Dercylidas 
 to Asia Minor ; it must be the rupture between Sparta 
 and Persia, and the dispatch of his predecessor, Thibron. 
 For a book, whose subject was the war between 
 Sparta and Persia in Asia Minor, the starting-point 
 can only have been the sending of the first force and 
 the first commander. I am equally clear as to the 
 terminus ad qiiem. It is not the battle of Cnidus ; it is 
 the recall of Agesilaus. The decision to recall Agesilaus 
 meant the formal abandonment of the crusade on which 
 Sparta had entered, and the formal renunciation of 
 the defence of the Greek cities in Asia Minor against 
 the barbarians. This decision, therefore, rather than 
 the battle of Cnidus, was the natural ending for a book 
 which started with Thibron, and had as its subject 
 the war between Sparta and Persia. Tliis conclusion 
 derives strong support from an examination of the text 
 of Diodorus. In the preface to Book XIV,^ the loss of 
 the Spartan dpxri is stated to form part of its theme. 
 The precise words are as follows : AaKeSaifioum Se 
 7r€pi7roir]adfi€uoL ttjv rfj^ *EXXa5oy OLpyj^v dpa/jL(picrPiJTi]Tou, 
 t6t€ TavTTj^ ia-Teprjdrjaau. What moment does Diodorus 
 intend by t6t€ ? The answer to this question is to be 
 found in chapter 82. 2, 3 : /jLia-ovfiivcou yap t6ov AaKeSai- 
 fiovicov vTTo tS)v (rvp.pdyoi>v 8ia to ^dpos rfj^ kTridTaata^ j ^ovto 
 paStoas KaTaXv(T€iv avTcou Trjv r/ycfioviay . . . Kal irpcoTOv pkv 
 avpeSpLOu KOLVov kv ttJ Kopipdco ovaT-qadpevoL tov^ fiovXeva-opi- 
 vovs enepTTOv . . . perd 8k ravTa . . . ttoXXovs avppd)^ovs dno 
 AaKeSaipovicov aTrea-Trjaav. This passage renders it clear 
 that Diodorus intended by the phrase t6t€ ravrris 
 ia-TeprjOrja-ay^ not the battle of Cnidus, but the first 
 congress of the anti-Laconian league at Corinth, and 
 
 ' XIV. 2. 1. 
 c2 
 
36 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS n 
 
 the consequent resolution of the Spartan government 
 to recall Agesilaus. If you look at these two passages 
 in Diodorus, I think you will be quite convinced that 
 that is what Diodorus meant. Nor is there in Diodorus* 
 narrative any trace whatever that the battle of Cnidus 
 formed a break in the story. My own view, therefore^ 
 is that the terminus a quo is the dispatch of Thibron, 
 and the terminus ad quern the decision on the part 
 of the Spartan government to recall Agesilaus. This 
 gives us, then, the answer to our first question, that 
 of the scope of Book XVIII of Ephorus. 
 
 The next question to be answered is this : Can we 
 determine the probable length of a book of Ephorus ? 
 It is natural to turn to Xenophon in the first instance, 
 because he includes the period covered by P., and by 
 Book XVIII of Ephorus. Book III of Xenophon s 
 Hellenics is 1,000 lines long, and the longest book in 
 the Hellenics is only 1,300 lines in length. If these 
 figures afforded us any probable indication of the length 
 of a book of Ephorus, it is clear that the claims of 
 Ephorus need not further detain us. What, however, 
 are the figures for the other two classical historians ? 
 When we turn to Thucydides we find that the average 
 is 2,300 lines, and that one book runs to 2,800 lines. 
 In Herodotus, one book, Book VII, runs to 3,500 lines, 
 and another. Book I, to 3,700 lines. Here, no doubt, we 
 are deaUng with authors who did not themselves divide 
 their works into books. The division was made in 
 the Alexandrine period, it is true ; but none the less 
 it is evidence, because it shows what people in the 
 Alexandrine period thought a reasonable length for 
 a book. But, clearly, the evidence is much better when 
 it is derived from works in which the division into books 
 proceeded from the author's own hand. I propose to 
 
II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 87 
 
 turn, first of all, to Diodorus ; and to Diodorus for two 
 reasons. Firstly, he, like Ephorus, wrote a universal 
 history ; secondly, as he had Ephorus before him, 
 nothing is more natural than that he should have 
 been guided by the length of a book of Ephorus in 
 determining the length of one of his own books. So 
 entirely imitative is Diodorus. Now, what are the 
 facts ? If we take the third pentad of Diodorus from 
 Book XI to Book XV (that is, the books which include 
 this period), we find that the average length of a book is 
 3,500 lines, while two books run to 4,300 lines. We may 
 turn next to still better evidence, the evidence of Polybius. 
 If Ephorus was the first historian of whom it can be 
 said with certainty that the division into books was due 
 to the author himself, Polybius is the first extant author 
 of whom the same can be said. There are five books of 
 Polybius which are complete. The average length of 
 those five is 3,700 lines ; the last book. Book V, runs 
 to 4,100, and Book III runs to 4,600 lines. If a book 
 of Polybius runs to 4,500 lines and more, I can see no 
 reason why a book of Ephorus may not have run 
 to 4,500 lines also. And now let us attempt to get 
 back to the age of Ephorus himself. Let us take his 
 great contemporary, Theopompus. If you turn to frag- 
 ment 25 (h) ^ you will find a passage from Photius' 
 Bihliotheca,^ which contains a long excerpt from the 
 first book of Theopompus' Phili;ppica. Theopompus 
 is, among other things, boasting of his literary output 
 before he had set hand to the Philippica. He tells us 
 that his kmSeiKTLKol \6yoi, his oratorical works, ran to 
 more than 20,000 lines, and his Hellenica to 150,000 
 lines. These are his words : ovk k\aTTov<ov filv rj Sia-fivprni/ 
 
 ' Fragm. 25 (&) G. and H. ; in MuUer's edition, fragm. 26. 
 '' 176 (ed. Bekker, p. 120). 
 
38 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 ^TTGov T0V9 eTnSeLKTLKoifS t5)V Xoyoav (rvyypayjrafjLei/a), nXeiovs Se 
 rj le' /jivpidSa^j kv ols Tois re tS>v ''KWrjvccv kol pappdpcov 
 7rpd^€LS /J'^XP'' ^^^ aTrayycXXofiivas '4(ttl Xafielv, That i& 
 clearly a reference to the Hellenica. Thus the twelve 
 books of the Hellenica ran to 150,000 lines. But 
 what was the length of a line in a manuscript of the 
 age of Theopompus ? That is not easy to determine. 
 In verse, the extreme limit was given by the hexa- 
 meter line, but for prose there is no such standard 
 available. If we take the extant papyri of every age, 
 we find that the number of letters in a line varies from 
 upwards of forty (this is the case with the Hellenica 
 Oxyrhynchia) to an average as low as fifteen, which is 
 found in a papyrus fragment of the Panegyricus of 
 Isocrates.^ As the lines in the printed text of the 
 Oxford edition of the Hellenica Oxyrhynchia contain, on 
 the average, forty-five letters, the highest average gives 
 us a line approximately equal to a line of the printed 
 text, while the lowest average gives us a line which is 
 one-third the length of the printed line. Even if we 
 assume that the lines of which Theopompus spoke (he 
 was boasting, and therefore he might have selected the 
 shortest he could find) were lines of fifteen letters only, 
 that is, that they were a third the length of our printed 
 lines, we shall get a minimum of 50,000 lines for the 
 twelve books, or more than 4,000 lines to a book — 
 a striking confirmation of my own calculation for 
 Ephorus. If it is argued that a work on such a scale as 
 is implied in twenty-nine books, with an average of 
 something like 4,000 lines apiece (i.e. 116,000 lines in 
 all), is inconceivable for Ephorus, it may fairly be replied 
 that this total, formidable as it may appear, must have 
 
 * Oxyrhynchus Papyrij vol. v, pp. 292 ff. 
 
II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 39 
 
 l)een exceeded by the Philippica of Theopompus. If 
 4,000 lines are allowed for each of the fifty-seven books, 
 the total will be as high as 230,000 lines ; if the average 
 of a book is put as low as 2,000 lines, the total will still 
 approximate to that which we have argued for Ephorus. 
 I think, therefore, that I am justified in assuming that 
 a length of 4,500 lines for a particular book is entirely 
 consistent with the scale of a universal history extending 
 to twenty-nine books. 
 
 To come now to the third question, Can we determine 
 the probable length of P. for the period covered by 
 Book XVIII of Ephorus; i.e. from the beginning 
 of 399 to the beginning of 394, a period of five 
 years ? 
 
 What is the length of the extant portion of P. ? 
 I propose to limit my calculation to the three last 
 sections — B, C, and D. I omit A altogether from the 
 calculation, for the very simple reason that the correct 
 position of A is a matter of dispute. Let us take the 
 three last sections, from chapter vi to the end, which 
 cover the period from the spring of 395 to the moment 
 when Agesilaus went into winter quarters at the end of 
 the year. The number of extant lines, whether perfect 
 or incomplete, in these sections is a little over 600. 
 There is evidence for another 50. That makes 650 in 
 all. One or two columns are probably lost, but, in 
 Dr. Hunt's opinion, not more than one or two. For 
 these we may allow another 100 lines ; and that will 
 give us a total of 750 lines. From the second campaign 
 of Agesilaus to his recall (the terminus ad quern which 
 I have assumed for Ephorus) we have to allow for the 
 following events : ^ the battle of Haliartus, Conon's 
 
 * A certain inference from Diod. XIV. 81-83. 1. 
 
40 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 mission to the Persian court, the formation of the anti- 
 Laconian league in Greece, the operations in northern 
 Greece (Thessaly, Heraclea, Phocis), and, lastly, the 
 recall of Agesilaus. If we allow for these incidents 
 two-thirds as much, say, 500 lines, the allowance will 
 be a liberal one, I think. That will give us, for the 
 period from the beginning of 395 to the spring of 394, 
 a total of some 1,250 lines. Now let us work backward. 
 The year 395 was an exceptionally heavy year, because 
 it included, not only operations of an important character 
 both on land and sea, but also two campaigns of Agesilaus, 
 as well as exceedingly important events in Greece. In 
 the year 396 there was only one brief campaign of 
 Agesilaus. The naval operations, it is true, were 
 important — perhaps more important than in the 
 succeeding year ; but there appear to have been no 
 incidents of importance in Greece itself, if we may 
 draw any inference from the silence of Diodorus. In 
 other words, it was comparatively a light year. Let 
 us allow for it 800 lines. For the two preceding years, 
 397 and 398 — the years of Dercylidas' command — 1,000 
 lines would be a generous allowance, seeing that Dercy- 
 lidas was mainly occupied in making truces. Finally, if 
 we allow 500 or 600 lines for Thibron, we shall get for 
 the period covered by Book XVIII of Ephorus a total 
 of something like 3,500 lines. Such a calculation, of 
 course, advances no claim to accuracy. It is more than 
 probable that there were events recorded by Ephorus 
 which have left no trace in the narrative of Diodorus ; 
 but there is a surplus of 1,000 lines to play with, and 
 that is more than sufficient to meet any reasonable 
 demand. 
 
 Before I can proceed to attempt an answer to the 
 next question, I must deal with an objection that is 
 
II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 41 
 
 likely to be advanced against the value of these calcula- 
 tions. My assumption has been that Book XVIII of 
 Ephorus started with the dispatch of Thibron to the 
 coast of Asia Minor, at the beginning of the winter of 
 400/399. In the third book, however, of Xenophon's 
 Hellenics there are two events that are narrated at con- 
 siderable length, which are placed by Xenophon after 
 the dispatch of Thibron ; namely, the Spartan invasion 
 of Elis, and the conspiracy of Cinadon. I anticipate 
 that it may be urged that in my calculation I ought to 
 have allowed a considerable number of lines for both of 
 these incidents. As to the former of these, the Spartan 
 invasion of Elis, it is certain that it was narrated by 
 Ephorus, and I think it may be inferred from the 
 account in Diodorus that it was narrated in considerable 
 detail ; but it is also certain from Diodorus that it 
 was narrated, not in Book XVIII of Ephorus, if 
 that book began with Thibron's expedition, but in 
 Book XVII. This is apparent, both from the chrono- 
 logy of Diodorus, and from the order in which he 
 narrates the events of that period. So far as the 
 chronology goes, he puts the invasion of Elis in the 
 year 402/1, the conclusion of peace between Sparta 
 and Elis in the year 401/400, and the expedition of 
 Thibron in the year 400/399. The first and the last 
 of these dates are indisputably correct : the war with 
 Elis began in the year 402/1, and the expedition of 
 Thibron was in the year 400/399. If there is any 
 error in Diodorus' chronology, it is that the conclusion 
 of peace was probably in the year 399, and not in the 
 year 400. Therefore, quite clearly on that showing, the 
 Spartan invasion of Elis would have been narrated in 
 Book XVII, and not in Book XVIII, of Ephorus. That 
 inference is confirmed by the order in which the events 
 
42 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 are placed by Diodorus. Between the outbreak of the 
 war and the invasion of Elis,on the one hand, and the con- 
 clusion of peace, on the other, Diodorus narrates the 
 expedition of the Ten Thousand and, oddly enough, 
 the overthrow of the Thirty at Athens; and between 
 the conclusion of peace and the dispatch of Thibron to 
 Asia Minor he narrates the expulsion of the Messenians 
 from Cephallenia.^ Clearly then, the Spartan invasion 
 of Elis formed no part of the eighteenth book of 
 Ephorus. Next, as to the conspiracy of Cinadon. It is 
 narrated at length in Xenophon, but there is no evidence 
 that it was narrated at all by Ephorus. There is, at any 
 rate, no mention of it in Diodorus ; though, of course, that 
 is not conclusive. But it is quite likely that Ephorus 
 may have entirely omitted it, or may have narrated 
 it very briefly. As will be seen presently, Meyer 
 admits that, while P. had very full sources of informa- 
 tion for Boeotia and for Athens, he does not betray 
 any trace of information derived from purely Spartan 
 sources. 
 
 Finally, can we determine the scale of Ephorus 
 relatively to the scale of Xenophon ? 
 
 There is, unfortunately, only one passage which 
 permits of a direct comparison between the two authors. 
 This is a fragment (130) of Ephorus, relating to Dercy- 
 lidas, which can be compared with the corresponding 
 sentence in the Hellenics J^ Ephorus and Xenophon are 
 both concerned with the explanation of the nickname 
 Sisyphus, which was given to Dercylidas, and this is 
 how they respectively explain it. 
 
 ' Diod. XIV. 17. 2-12 ; 19-31 ; 32, 33 ; 34 •, 36. 
 2 Xen. Hell III. 1. 8. 
 
I 
 
 I 
 
 II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 48 
 
 Xenophon. Ephorus. 
 
 'Av^p 8okS>v €hai fxdXa (^AaKeSai/xSvioi . . . Afpicv- 
 
 fjLr])(avT]TiK6s' Kal in^KaXeiTO XiSau i^ne^y^av) olkovovt^^ on 
 8k Xi(TV(l>09. irdvTa npaTTHu iicoOaa-iv ol 
 
 7T€pl T^u 'Acrmi/ fidpfiapoi 
 fiera aTrarTy? Kal S6Xov. AiSirep 
 AcpKvXiSav €7r€ /jiyffau rjKLora 
 i^op,i(ouT€9 f^aTraT-qOrjaea-dai' 
 Tju yap ovSeu ep T(p rpoirco 
 AaKcoviKov ovSk dnXovu ex^cov, 
 dXXa TToXif to rravovpyov 
 Kal TO drjpmSes. Aib Kal Xl- 
 av<f>oi/^ avTou ol AaKeSaLp-ouLOi 
 TTpoarjyopevop. 
 
 Xenophon does it in 9 words, and Ephorus in 44 ; 
 a slight but significant piece of evidence. But we 
 can arrive at a comparison of the scale of Ephorus 
 and Xenophon indirectly, on other evidence ; namely, 
 from a comparison of the descriptions given by Diodorus 
 and Xenophon respectively of three of the battles 
 in the last period of the Peloponnesian War — 
 Abydos, Cyzicus, and Arginusae. In Diodorus the 
 battle of Abydos occupies 90 lines, in Xenophon 25 ; 
 the battle of Cyzicus, 125 lines in Diodorus and 45 in 
 Xenophon ; the battle of Arginusae, down to the defeat 
 of the Spartans (i.e. not including the failure to rescue 
 the survivors and to recover the dead), in Diodorus 
 takes 110 lines and in Xenophon 45 lines. Now, no 
 doubt some features in the descriptions of these battles 
 may have been added Ijy Diodorus ; on the other hand, 
 it must be remembered that Diodorus is epitomizing 
 Ephorus. A description which ran to 110 lines in 
 Diodorus must certainly have run to not less than 110, 
 probably to a great deal more than 110, in Ephorus. If, 
 
 * A certain correction for Skv^ov, the reading of the MSS. 
 
44 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 therefore, we can draw any inference from these com- 
 parisons, we find that Ephorus was something like three 
 times, or from two to three times, as diffuse as Xenophon 
 in his descriptions. But the comparison does not end 
 here. A glance at Diodorus shows us that, while 
 Xenophon is silent as to the naval operations down 
 to the beginning of the year 394, they bulk very 
 large in Ephorus. Further also, we see from Diodorus 
 that Ephorus narrated many incidents in the history of 
 Greece proper, of which not one word is to be found in 
 Xenophon ; that is to say, he dealt with a far wider 
 range of subject. If, therefore, Xenophon covered four 
 years in 1,000 lines, it is not an extravagant assump- 
 tion — -it is a fairly certain inference — that Ephorus 
 must have devoted something like 3,000 lines, at 
 least, to these four years, and, consequently, something 
 approaching 4,000 lines to the five years covered in 
 Book XVIII. Any argument, therefore, against the 
 claims of Ephorus, which is based upon the supposed 
 scale of his work, breaks down completely. So far from 
 the argument from the scale being an argument against 
 his claims, it is an argument, and a very strong argument, 
 in favour of them. 
 
 We have disposed of the question of scale. We must 
 now turn to the question of method. Our starting-point 
 must be the well-known passage in the preface to 
 Book V of Diodorus,^ to which I have already referred. 
 Diodorus there says that Ephorus was successful, not 
 only in his literary treatment of the subject, but also in 
 the arrangement of his matter : "E^opoy ^e ray Koivas 
 irpd^eLS dvaypd<p(ov, ov fiovov Kara rrjv Xe^LV, dXka koX Karh 
 Trji/ OLKovofjLiay kiTLTerevye- rSiv yap Pi^Xcov eKaa-Trjv 7rc7roLr}K€ 
 n€pL€)(^eiu Kara y^vos ray Trpd^ei^. It is argued that this 
 
 ' V. 1. 4. 
 
II THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 45 
 
 passage proves conclusively that Ephorus wrote accord- 
 ing to subject and not synchronistically, and that 
 a treatment of a subject which is Kara yhos excludes 
 the treatment of a subject which is synchronistic. 
 It is further argued that, as the treatment of the 
 subject in P. is synchronistic, our fragment cannot 
 be from the pen of Ephorus. Schwartz, in his article 
 on Ephorus in Pauly-Wissowas Real-Encyclopadief 
 writing before the discovery of P., says that of one 
 thing we may be certain, 'that Ephorus did not 
 write annalistically.' With this we may compare 
 Laqueur's confident assertion, * One thing that is 
 certain is that Ephorus did not write synchronistically.' * 
 In this argument I find an assumption which I cannot 
 admit — that a treatment Kara yivos excludes a synchro- 
 nistic treatment. If Thucydides had followed the method 
 of Ephorus and all later writers, and had divided his 
 work into books, he might have made a single book out 
 of Books VI and VII, and everybody would, of course, 
 have admitted that it satisfied the conditions of a com- 
 position Kara yiuos ; i. e. that there was a unity of subject 
 in Books VI and VII. Yet the plan which Thucydides 
 follows in those two books is just as synchronistic as the 
 method of P. Thucydides passes from one scene to the 
 other — from Athens to Sicily, and from Sicily to Sparta 
 — according to the chronology. 
 
 A still stronger case is to be found in Book VIII. 
 If Thucydides had lived to continue his narrative 
 down to the battle of Cyzicus, Book VIII would have 
 been an example of a book composed Kara yli/oy ; 
 there would have been an essential unity of subject 
 in the book. Yet throughout Book VIII the treatment 
 is entirely synchronistic ; the narrative passes from 
 1 Hermes, 1911, p. 323. 
 
46 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 one subject to another, and from one scene to another. 
 In both these cases, therefore, you have an example 
 of a writer who is synchronistic, if any writer ever 
 was so, and yet in both cases there is an essential 
 unity of subject. And an assertion of this kind must be 
 tested by evidence. As I have already pointed out, 
 there can be no question that Ephorus, in his treatment 
 of the period between the Persian and the Peloponnesian 
 Wars, did not write synchronistically, and did write 
 Kara ykvos. What evidence is there, however, that this 
 holds good for this period of his history % Let us 
 take Diodorus' narrative of the events of the year with 
 which we are dealing, the year 395, and carry it down 
 to the beginning of 394. We find in Diodorus — and 
 Diodorus, therefore, found in Ephorus — the following 
 order of events : the first campaign of Agesilaus, the 
 overthrow of Tissaphernes by Tithraustes, the outbreak 
 of the war in Phocis and the battle of Haliartus, Conon's 
 journey to the Persian court, the formation of the anti- 
 Laconian confederacy, and the desultory operations in 
 Northern Greece. If that is not a synchronistic method, 
 I do not know what is. But we have better evidence 
 still. Let us turn to the year 394, one of the most 
 important in all Greek history. What is the order of 
 events in Diodorus for that year ? You have the Con- 
 gress at Corinth, followed by the resolution of the 
 Spartan government to recall Agesilaus ; then the 
 battle of Nemea ; the homeward march of Agesilaus 
 (which was clearly described in detail in Ephorus) 
 through Thrace, Macedonia, and Thessaly, as far as 
 Thermopylae ; the battle of Cnidus ; the battle of 
 Coronea ; the operations of Conon and Pharnabazus 
 in the Aegean. He passes from Corinth to Sparta, 
 from the Peloponnese to Northern Greece, from Europe 
 
IT THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS 47 
 
 to Asia, froni the operations on land to the operations 
 by sea, and back from the operations by sea to the 
 operations on land. A more synchronistic treatment of 
 a period could not well be conceived. Let us now 
 compare it with P. If we start from chapter vi, and 
 leave out section A altogether, what do we find ? The 
 order of the events which he narrates is as follows : 
 the first campaign of Agesilaus ; the overthrow of 
 Tissaphernes ; the revolution at Khodes ; the outbreak 
 of the war between Phocis and Thebes, \vith the digres- 
 sion on the Theban constitution ; then the mutiny of the 
 Cypriotes in Conon's fleet ; and, finally, the second 
 campaign of Agesilaus. The parallel is strikingly exact. 
 In the one case we pass from the deliberations of the 
 allies to the deliberations of the Spartans, in the other 
 we pass from the Greek camp to the Persian court; 
 and in Diodorus we pass from the operations on land to 
 the operations by sea, just as in P. we pass from the 
 land campaign to the naval operations. In P., as in 
 Diodorus, we pass from Asia Minor to Europe ; then 
 we pass back to the naval operations, precisely as 
 we do in Diodorus in 394 ; and then from the naval 
 operations back once again to the operations by land, 
 exactly as in Diodorus. Put them in two columns 
 side by side, and the parallel could hardly be more 
 striking. 
 
 P., 395. Diodorus (Ephorus), 394. 
 
 First campaign of Agesilaus Congress of the Allies (Corinth). 
 
 (Asia : land warfare). Recall of Agesilaus (Sparta). 
 
 Overthrow of Tissaphernes Battle of Nemea (Peloponnese). 
 
 (Asia). Homeward march of Agesilaus 
 
 Revolution at Rhodes (Asia : (Northern Greece). 
 
 naval warfare). Battle of Cnidus (Asia : naval 
 
 Phocis and Thebes (Europe). warfare). 
 
48 THE CURRENT ASSUMPTIONS ii 
 
 Cypriote mutiny (Asia : naval Battle of Coronea (Europe : land 
 
 warfare). warfare). 
 
 Second campaign of Agesilaus Conon and Pharnabazus in the 
 
 (Asia : land warfare). Aegean (naval warfare). 
 
 There can be but one conclusion. Whatever Ephorus 
 may have done in other parts of his history, for this 
 period, which is the only period that is relevant 
 to the issue, his method was synchronistic, precisely 
 in the sense in which the method of P. is synchro- 
 nistic. There is, it is true, an assumption which 
 underlies my argument. I have assumed that the 
 order in Diodorus corresponds to the order in Ephorus. 
 But what is the alternative to this assumption 1 It is this : 
 that Ephorus wrote Kara yeroy, and that Diodorus pulled 
 his narrative to pieces, and stuck the pieces together 
 again in synchronistic form. Other historians might 
 have been capable of achieving such a feat ; what is quite 
 certain is that Diodorus was unable to achieve it. You 
 have only to turn to any of the passages in which 
 Ephorus clearly wrote Kara ye^oy to see the startling 
 results at which Diodorus could arrive with the aid of 
 his Dictionary of Dates.^ 
 
 The questions which we set out to discuss have now 
 been answered, and the two assumptions which seemed 
 so fatal to the claims of Ephorus have been disposed of : 
 the assumption as to the scale of his work, and the 
 assumption as to his method. They were assumptions 
 which were universally accepted, but they were accepted 
 without being examined. 
 
 ^ e. g. Diod. XI. 44, 45 ; 54-58 ; 60-62. 
 
LECTURE III 
 
 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 
 
 My object in the last lecture was to clear the ground 
 for the consideration of the claims of Ephorus by an 
 examination of the two assumptions which had hitherto 
 been regarded as fatal to those claims. Having thus 
 disposed of the negative arguments, we are free to pro- 
 ceed to the discussion of the positive arguments in 
 favour of the identification of P. with Ephorus. 
 
 The first argument to be discussed in the present 
 lecture is the argument from coincidence. It will be 
 concerned with the indirect coincidences between P. and 
 Ephorus ; i.e. with the coincidences which can be estab- 
 lished between P. and those authors who excerpted 
 Ephorus : with coincidences, that is to say, not between 
 Ephorus, at first hand, and P., but between Ephorus, at 
 second hand, and P. 
 
 I propose to start with a comparison of Diodorus and 
 P. On comparing the two narratives, we find, at the 
 first glance, that the choice of subjects in Ephorus 
 coincided with the choice of subjects in P. ; and secondly, 
 that so far as our evidence extends, the order in wliich 
 these subjects were treated by Ephorus was the order in 
 which they are treated by P.^ The following are the 
 subjects and their order in P. : (1) the first campaign 
 of Agesilaus, (2) the overthrow of Tissaphernes by 
 Tithraustes, (3) the revolution at Rhodes, (4) the out- 
 break of the war in Phocis, (5) the mutiny of the 
 
 ^ Here, again, I omit section A and start with section B. 
 
 1524 D 
 
50 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS iii 
 
 Cypriotes at Caunus, and (6) the second campaign of 
 Agesilaus. In Diodorus we have (1) the first campaign 
 of Agesilaus, (2) the overthrow of Tissaphernes by 
 Tithraustes, and (3) the outbreak of the war in Phocis ; 
 three out of the six. It results, therefore, that three of 
 these events were narrated by Ephorus, and that they 
 were narrated in the same order. But we have evidence 
 for a fourth — the mutiny of the Cypriotes ; for the only 
 other passage in ancient literature in which it is referred 
 to is a passage in Justin ; ^ and, as Justin is admitted to 
 go back ultimately to Ephorus, the reference to it in 
 Justin proves that the account of the mutiny at Caunus 
 stood in Ephorus. Nobody, of course, has ever suggested 
 that Ephorus did not describe the second campaign of 
 Agesilaus in 395. That it was omitted by Diodorus is 
 to be explained by the simple fact that Diodorus is 
 Diodorus. Two conclusions, therefore, are indisputable ; 
 firstly, that out of the six incidents which we find in P., 
 five were in Ephorus ; and secondly, that three of them 
 were narrated by Ephorus in the same order in which 
 we find them in P. 
 
 But the coincidence does not end here. The com- 
 parison has been carried, so far, only to the end of P. 
 It may be carried beyond that point. In Diodorus, 
 who, as has been pointed out, omits the second campaign 
 of Agesilaus, the order of events, after the fall of Tissa- 
 phernes, is the following : (1) the quarrel between 
 Phocis and Boeotia, (2) the Boeotian War down to the 
 battle of Haliartus, and (3) the journey of Conon to 
 Babylon. Meyer admits that this order — the order 
 in Diodorus — was almost certainly the order in P. ; 
 that is to say, that in P. the winter campaign of 
 
 ' VI. 2. 11. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 61 
 
 Agesilaiis, where P. ends, was followed by the Boeotian 
 War and the battle of Haliartus, and that this was 
 followed by Conon's journey to Babylon. Thus he 
 admits, in effect, that P., having carried the narrative 
 of Agesilaus' campaign in Asia Minor down to the 
 beginning of winter, went back some few months to 
 the outbreak of the war in Greece, carried on the story 
 down to the battle of Haliartus in the autumn, and 
 then narrated Conon s journey, which belongs to the 
 end of the autumn of 395, That is to say, the order in 
 Diodorus is the correct chronological order, and there- 
 fore would be entirely in accordance with the plan 
 discernible in P. This constitutes an important 
 advance ; for now we are in a position to say, not 
 merely that five of the six subjects narrated by P. 
 were in Ephorus, and that three of them stood in the 
 same order, but that of eight subjects narrated by P., 
 seven were in Ephorus, and six of the seven in the 
 same order. 
 
 The extent and significance of these coincidences 
 can be seen at a glance when they are exhibited in 
 parallel columns. 
 
 P. Ephorus. 
 
 (1) First campaign of Agesilaus. (1) First campaign of Agesilaus. 
 
 (2) Overthrow of Tissaphernes. (2) Overthrow of Tissaphernes. 
 
 (3) Revolution at Rhodes. 
 
 (4) Origin of Boeotian War. (3) Origin of Boeotian War. 
 
 (5) Mutiny of Cypriotes. (4) Mutiny of Cypriotes (Justin). 
 
 (6) Second campaign of Agesi- (5) [Second campaign of Agesi- 
 
 laus. laus.] 
 
 (7) [Boeotian War to Haliartus.] (6) Boeotian War to Haliartus. 
 
 (8) [Conon's journey toBabylon. ] (7) Conon's journey to Babylon. 
 
 Now, if the hypothesis is correct that Diodorus 
 derived his account from Ephorus, and that Ephorus 
 
 D 2 
 
52 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS in 
 
 derived his account from Theopompus, and that Theo- 
 pompus is P., this coincidence between Ephorus and 
 Theopompus is quite extraordinary. It seems, not 
 only that Ephorus must have followed Theopompus, 
 but that he must have followed him in the most servile 
 and mechanical fashion conceivable : and this implies 
 a relation between Ephorus and Theopompus of which 
 ancient literature knows nothing. 
 
 This coincidence between Ephorus and P. becomes 
 still more striking when we pass to details. I propose 
 to take three examples only from P. The first is the first 
 campaign of Agesilaus, the second is the assassination 
 of Tissaphernes, and the third is a passage in section A ^ 
 relating to the composition of the Persian fleet. 
 
 The passage which is relatively the fullest both 
 in P. and Diodorus is the first of these, that which 
 relates to the first campaign of Agesilaus in 395 and 
 the victory at Sardis. It is here, therefore, that com- 
 parison is easiest. It must be remembered, however, 
 that Diodorus' account is concise, and that the earher 
 half of the account in P. is excessively fragmentary. 
 What then are the coincidences which can be traced, 
 in spite of these conditions ? In the first place, according 
 to Diodorus,^ Agesilaus marched through the Plain of 
 the Cayster and the region of Mount Sipylus {to 
 KavcTpov TTiSiop Kai Tr]v wepl ^lttvXov )(<opav) ; in the 
 fragmentary lines of P. we read to] Ka[v(r]Tpi[ou neSiov 
 
 TO, opt] Ta^dp^vos. No one 
 
 questions that Sipylus stood there, as well as the Plain 
 of the Cayster. This is almost immediately followed in 
 Diodorus by the words eTTr]Ko\ov$€L toTs AaKedaipovLOLs. In 
 
 ^ The order in which section A should be placed is here not 
 relevant to the issue. 
 
 2 Diod. XIV. 80; Hell OxyrK vi. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 63 
 
 the parallel passage in P. the words [i7rrjKo]\ov6€i tois^KX- 
 Xrjaiv can be read. Agesilaus is then stated in Diodonis 
 to have marched in a hollow square : e/y nXivdiov (rvvTa- 
 ^as T0V9 (TTpaTidoTa?. That the equivalent of this stood 
 in P. is certain from the occurrence of the words [€^]a)^c»/ 
 Tov 7rXiy[$iov a few Hnes farther on. The battle, again, 
 both in Diodorus and in P., is decided by a body of 
 troops placed in ambush (oncos heSpeva-rj tov? papfidpov? 
 , . . T^v €Pe8pap iraprjXXa^ev^ Diod. ; dva[(TTrj<r\as €k tt}? 
 hiSpa? in P.), and in both versions Tissaphemes is 
 present at the battle. Finally, Diodorus states that 
 after the victory Agesilaus attempted to march inland, 
 but that on finding the omens unfavourable he returned 
 to the coast : kn^xeLpricre jikv eh rds dvco aaTpanda?, kv SI 
 TOLS UpoL9 ov 8vudfjL€V09 KaXXiepfjaaL irdXiv dirrjyaye ttjv 
 ^vvafiiv eirl OdXaTTav, In P., though the papyrus is very 
 fragmentary at this point, we can undoubtedly lead 
 that Agesilaus marched into Phrygia, and then, on 
 finding the omens unfavourable, returned to the sea : 
 
 ^KOveTO TTOTepa xW] 5[i]a/3[afVeij/ tov 7roTa]/jiov rj firj, /cat 
 ^aSi^eiv CTTt KeXa[ij/ay rj ttoXlv t^ovs (TTpaTicoTa? dirdyeiv. 
 0)9 8\ avueP[aLV€u avTw] fifj ytyveaOai KaXd to, Upd, irepc- 
 fi€iva[s eK€L Trjv t]€ rjfiipav rlu napeyiviTo Kal ttju €7no[vaau 
 
 d7rfjy]€v TOV [aTpaTov * AyrjaL]Xao9 fxkv 
 
 ov[v TO weSiov TO Maidv]8pov KaXovfievov. 
 
 Here then there are seven points essential to the story, 
 in each one of which there is complete agreement 
 between Diodorus and P., and absolute disagreement 
 with Xenophon's parallel narrative. Indeed, Xeno- 
 phon's account has nothing in common with the account 
 in P. and Diodorus, except the defeat of the Persians 
 and the plunder of the camp. The question has often 
 been raised as to how far Diodorus rewrote Ephorus. 
 In the description of the plunder of the camp we liave 
 
54 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS iir 
 
 an excellent example of the way in which Diodorus 
 translated the language of his authority into the language 
 of his own age. The passage runs as follows in P. : 
 
 "KTraKoXovOrjcraPTes Se tois TroXcfiiois ov Xtav ttoXvp \p6vov, 
 , . . KaTafiaXXovaLv fiev avTcou nepi i^aKocrtovs, diroaToivTe^ 
 Be Trjs ^ico^ecoy ePdSi^ou kir avTO to crrparoTreSov to tS>v 
 Papfidpoiv. KaToXafiovTes Sk ^vXaKrju ov (r7Tov8aL[(09 K]a6€[crTa)]- 
 aav Ta)(€(09 alpovaiv, koI XafiPdvovaLv avTCdv [ttoXJA^j^ fikv 
 dyopav av^vovs Se dvOpd>7rov9, iroXXa Se aKevrj Kal XprjfjLaTa. 
 
 It becomes in Diodorus, XIV. 80. 4 : 
 
 O/ 8k TTCpl Toi^ ' Ayrja-iXaov p-^Xpi- p-^v tlpo9 €7rL8id>^aPT€9, 
 dpeiXov p\v vnep tov9 i^aKi<T)(^iXL0V9, aixpaXd>Tooi^ 81 woXv 
 nXijOos rjOpOLcrav ttjv 5e TrapepfioXriv BLrjpTracTav, yepLOvaav^ 
 TToAXooi/ dyaBS>v. 
 
 Yet it is here, in the narrative of Agesilaus' first 
 campaign, that Meyer claims to have discovered dis- 
 crepancies which disprove for ever the hypothesis that 
 Ephorus is P. Between the narrative in Diodorus and 
 the narrative in P. he finds discrepancies, which, he 
 asserts, are only to be explained by the hypothesis that 
 Ephorus, the intermediary, while closely following the 
 narrative of P., varied it in detail. The first of these 
 discrepancies relates to the number of the slain. It is 
 given in P. as 600, in Diodorus as 6,000. This is, 
 according to Meyer, a characteristic example of the 
 Ephorean method. It is, I think, a simpler hypothesis 
 to assume a slip on the part of Diodorus, or, more 
 likely, of a copyist. Ancient literature teems with 
 parallel examples. The second discrepancy is, perhaps, 
 rather more serious ; only, unfortunately, P. is so 
 fragmentary at this point, that it is difficult to deter- 
 mine what stood there. It relates to the number of 
 troops under Tissaphernes. In Diodorus the numbers 
 are given as 10,000 foot and 50,000 horse {pvpiov9 fiey 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 55 
 
 imrihy 7r€VTaKi<rfivpiov9 Se irf(ovs dOpoia-af), In P. the Editors 
 read as follows: [Innia? yikv. . . a]Kicr\L\iov^ Koi fJLv[piov9fn(iov9 
 
 8h fivpicov o]vK iXaTTovs, and they suggest that Trcj/ra- 
 
 Kia/jivpicov may have stood before the words ovk iXdrrovi, 
 Various other emendations, however, have been proposed. 
 If the Editors' suggestion is correct, Diodorus agrees with 
 P., except that he puts the cavalry at 10,000 instead 
 of 18,000. That again is quite a possible slip on 
 Diodorus' part ; nor do I think that any real weight 
 can be attached to it. His next discrepancy relates to 
 the term by which the force of Agesilaus is designated 
 in Diodorus and in P. respectively. In P. the army is 
 described as '^EXXrjpes ; in Diodorus as AaKcSai/iouioL. To 
 Theopompus, Meyer argues, it was a national crusade 
 — the Greeks against the Barbarians ; to Ephorus it was 
 an affair of purely Spartan policy : Agesilaus had no 
 claim to pose as a Greek hero ; he was merely the 
 leader of the Lacedaemonian forces. Unfortunately for 
 this explanation, we have only to read a few lines farther 
 in Diodorus to find that the war is described as 6 Trpoy 
 T0V9 ''EXXr}i/as TToXe/xoy ; while in this very section of P. 
 (ch. vi, vii), though the force, it is true, is commonly called 
 ol "EXXryj/cy, it is twice over called ol UeXoTrovi/rja-ioi.^ 
 
 The next discrepancy, which is concerned with the 
 ambush, is scarcely more formidable. In P. Xenocles is 
 represented as acting on his own initiative ; he sallies 
 forth from the ambush when he thinks the right moment 
 has come : 6 5e acvoKXrjSf enuSri Kaip[ov vir\iXafiiv dvai T019 
 TToXefjLioL? e7ri)(^eipeLy, dva[aTri(T]a9 (k ttjj (viSpa? tov9 IleXo- 
 TTovvriaiovs eOei 8p6fjLa>, In Diodorus, on the other hand, 
 he acts in obedience to a signal from Agesilaus : Kal tov 
 ava<rr](JLOv tol9 Kara ttjv iviSpav ovaiv dpOivTO?, iKfivot jikv 
 
 ^ So too at the beginning of ch. xvi, Agesilaus is described as 
 advancing a/xa tw OTpaTcr/xart twv AaKeSai/xovicov Kai twv (rvfifid^tov. 
 
56 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS m 
 
 7raiavi<ravT€9 €Tr€(f>€povTo tol9 7ro\€/iLOL9. Diodorus' descrip- 
 tions of battles are notoriously conventional, and his 
 phraseology is also conventional — most conventional, 
 perhaps, when he is describing his favourite device of 
 an ambush. I think we may safely treat this detail in 
 Diodorus as part of his stock-in-trade. After all, he 
 is here compressing into two or three lines what occupies 
 a dozen or a score in P. 
 
 So far we have encountered nothing that is insuper- 
 able. But we now come to a discrepancy which is 
 of a more serious character. In Diodorus three lines 
 are devoted to a description of the plunder of the 
 napaSeia-o? of Tissaphernes in the neighbourhood of 
 Sardis, and Meyer is certainly within his right in saying 
 that there is no trace of this to be found in P. To this 
 Judeich replies that it need not have occupied more 
 than a couple of lines in P. ; and with that I entirely 
 agree. Diodorus does sometimes, when he gets a 
 favourite subject, expand it. But though it need not 
 have occupied more than a couple of lines in P., I should 
 have been better pleased if Judeich had indicated the 
 position of those two lines. It is just possible that 
 room might be found for a brief reference to the 
 irapdSuaos in the very fragmentary passage^ in which 
 the words ov\8ev dXX' rj tov 7roT[afjL6v occur ; referring, of 
 course, to Agesilaus' advance along the banks of the 
 Hermus. If, however, this should be judged impossible, 
 then I admit that it is a substantial argument against 
 the identity of P. with Ephorus. It would be, to my 
 mind, the most substantial argument that has yet been 
 advanced. One would have to fall back on the explana- 
 tion, not an impossible, but not a very probable, 
 
 ^ VI. 3, col. V, line 42. 
 
in THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 57 
 
 explanation, that Diodorus had transferred to this 
 passage a description of the ravaging of the wapddiiao^ 
 that had occurred elsewhere. 
 
 The second passage in which coincidences are to be 
 traced between Ephorus and P. occurs in the description 
 of the plot against Tissaphernes and his execution.^ 
 It follows in P. immediately on the description of 
 Agesilaus* victory at Sardis. Here we are dealing 
 with a compressed account in Diodorus and with an 
 extremely fragmentary one in P. In P., the most we 
 can hope for is to find a line or two perfect ; as a rule 
 we must be content with a word here and a word there. 
 This makes the coincidences the more remarkable. 
 First of all, in Diodorus, as in P., the incident follows 
 immediately on Agesilaus' campaign. In Diodorus, 
 Artaxerxes is said to have been incited by his mother, 
 Parysatis. The Editors think it probable that the first 
 syllable of her name is to be recognized in col. vii. 15.^ 
 Next follows in Diodorus the statement that Artaxerxes 
 TTpoy Ta9 TToXei? kol tov9 aaTpdira^ €7r€fjL-\fr€v cTTiOToXay : in 
 P.,3 dviwe/jLylrep imaToXd? occurs a few lines later on. In 
 the next sentence in Diodorus, Ariaeus is mentioned as 
 the agent of Tithraustes. Similarly, in P. the name of 
 Ariaeus occurs in the next line.^ Again, in Diodorus 
 narrative, Tissaphernes was seized in his bath. In P.^ 
 ifjLaTia are mentioned, and in the next line . . .]vou 
 <rvvap[7ra ... is read. The Editors suggest that vou may 
 be the last syllable of Xovopevov or of yviivSv^ and awap. 
 seems to point to some part of the verb crwapnd^uv. 
 The incident of the bath is clearly common to the two 
 
 ^ Hell Oxyrh., ch. viii ; Diod. XIV. 80. 6-8. 
 
 "^ • ' ' -W 'kfna^]ip$[ 
 
 . . . .]8ta[ ^aTrap[ 
 
 ' 1. 22. ' 1. 23. * viii. 2, col. viii. 30. 
 
58 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS iii 
 
 accounts. Lastly, in Diodorus this incident is followed 
 by the statement that Agesilaus concluded a six 
 months' truce with Tithraustes. This part of the 
 Papyrus is missing, but that the same statement stood 
 there is proved by the words at the beginning of 
 chapter xvi : 'AyrjatXao? . . . ^ovX6/jl€i/09 efjLfiepeiu rah 
 a-irovSais rah irpos TLBpav(TTr]v yevofikvaLS. The cumulative 
 force of these coincidences can best be realized by 
 a comparison of the corresponding passages in the two 
 writers, which are here given in full. 
 
 Diodorus XIV. 80, 5-8. 
 
 'A-yqciXaos 5' eTrc^eiprjae p.ev eh Ta9 avco craTpairdas, iv 
 6€ TOLS Upois ov 8\)vd|xcvos Ka\\i€pTicraL, irdXLv dirT|'Ya'Y€ tt^v 
 8wa[Jiiv kirl OdXaTTav. 'ApTa|€p|T|S 5e 6 T?Jy'Ao-i'ay fiaa-iXevs 
 Ta T€ eXaTTcofxaTa wvOofiepos, kol KaToppco8a>v tou npos tovs 
 '^EXXrjvas TToXe/jLOu, hi op-yfis €tx€ tov TL(T(Ta(j)epvriv. Tovtov yap 
 aiTLOv TOV woXefjLov yeyovkvai vTreXafM^ave* Kal inro r^y fjL7]Tpbs 
 Se napvadTiSos tJv -q^KOjxevos TLficoprja-aa-OaL tov TL(raa(j>€pvr}V' 
 el^e yap avTrj 8ia(j)6p(i)S TTpbs avTOv, kK tov SiaPe^XrjKei^aL tov 
 vibv avTrJ9 J^vpou, 6t€ ttjv kirl tov d8eX(j)0v aTpaTeiav kiroteiTo, 
 KaTaarTrjaas ovv TiOpava-Trjv rjyepova, tovtco fiev TTaprjyyeiXe 
 (TvXXaiJLpdvciv Tiaraacpipvrjv, 7rpo9 Se ray 7r6Xei9 Kal tov9 
 (TaTpdna^ circixvl/cv tiriCTToXds, otto)? Trarrey tovt(o ttolSxtl 
 TO irpoarTaTTopevov. * O 8e TiBpava-Tr]^ irapayevofxevos e/y 
 KoXocro-ay xfjs ^pu^ias, (TUVcXapc tov TL(T<ra<pipvr)v 8id Tivos 
 *Apiaio\} aaTpdirov Xovdficvov, Kal ttjv KecpaXrjv diroKoy^as 
 dneaTeiXe 7rpo9 tov Paa-iXia* avrbs §€ t6v ' A-ytio-iXaov Tr€i(ras 
 €ls Xd-yous IX66LV, €|afiiiviaio\}S dvoxds ciroiTio'aTO. 
 
 Hell. Oxyrhynchia, col. vi (52)-vii (25). 
 
 *fls hk o-uv€p[aiv€v aiPTw] \lt\ yiyv^a-Qai KaXd rd Icpd, 
 7r€pip,€iva[s kK€L Trjv T]e rjfjLkpav fjv napeyivcTO Kal ttjv kirLo^crav 
 
 dirTi*Y]€V t6v [o-Tpaxov ' AYilcrilXaos p-ev ov\y 
 
 TO 7re8iov TO Maidv]8pov KaXovfievov 8[ 
 
 ] . vipovTai Av8[ol] k[ 
 
 ] . 5e /Sao-iXe^y . [ 
 
rii THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 59 
 
 7r]€ pi T0VT0V9 T\ 
 
 (rTp]aTTjyoi^ dfia 81 [ 
 
 ] . Ti(r<ra^€pvrj €t[ 
 
 . . . Tojvs "EXXr^vas oi . [ 
 
 . . . ]yov Kal fid\Xc[y 
 
 . . .] . 8i)(a K€ifi€[u 
 
 M 
 
 ] <ru[ Ti<r<r]a<t>[€pv 
 
 W *ApTa|]^p|[ 
 
 . . .]8ia[ ]airap[ 
 
 . . .]Ao[ ]/ca[. .]oiT€[ ] . a'a[ 
 
 • • ']^9y[ ] ^^"^^ '^^Trjy[.] . a[.]a Sl[ 
 
 . . .](ra[. . .]t€ PacriXev? 6fjLoXoyovuT[ . .] fid\ia'T[a 
 
 . . .] Si[a Ti(r]<ra<f)€pvr]u Kal Tra[.]cov eKcTvoy [ 
 
 . . .] nduTcov KaB* & TiOpa[v(rTTj9 a]vTbv /ca[.] . . [ 
 
 . . . .] 6y ineiS^ Karacf^ ^pv]yiau Kal AvS[iav .... 
 
 . . .]to[. . . .]ej/ dve'n'€|j.\|/[€V cttiotJoXcls ay €0ep[e 
 
 . . .]/oa[ ]l irpbs 'Api[aiov TL]a-(Ta(f>epur}[ ] 
 
 €7r[ ]o 7rpo9 Mc . [. .]aiou m a . [ ] 
 
 0-7 . [. . . .]Xap€tv e/ceX[. . .]aLS[ ] 
 
 Col. viii. 
 
 • • 'K ypo[ K * -^pTaii^pi ]Ta r)fi€pa[9 ] 
 
 avTou a[ ^pDJ-yias €7rfa[ ] tou Ti6p[av(rrr}i/ 
 
 Tia-<ra](f)€pprjs [ ] irpd^iv a[ OL\Ko8op,^\Jv ] TroAecos' . 
 
 [ ] {fno tS>v [ ] . e fia^i ] ro) TL6pa[v(rTri ](r[.] 
 
 «£ Trapa[ ] knLcrTo\a[^ ] TT/ooy t^v a[ ]TLas Kara . 
 
 [ ] . e MiXrila-L ]\/ray Kal Ta ,[ Ka]TTip€V €ls [ ] 
 
 ' Apiatov €[ iie\Ta 8e Tav[Ta ] 8iaTpiP(i)[v ] l^JidTia 
 
 t[ ]vov o'Uvap[Tra ] Kal fi€Ta7r[ ]\ot . v inln ] 
 
 crvi/€)([ ]fi€v . [ ]Trjs 8[ ] eAey[e ] t[o]v pa<ri\ico9 
 
 [ ] Ta[T]9 €7n<TToX[ai9 ]i to PvpX[ioy ]tt€v PaaiX[e 
 
 ] avTov dva[ ] . . . €iu CK . [ d]XXr]v duay[ 
 
 Tai]v papPdpco[v . . . 
 
 Col. xviii (34)-(38). 
 
 'AY^dCXaos 5e TrapanopevofAet/o^ (h rby 'EXXrjairovTov dfia 
 TO) (TTpaT^vfjiaTi TSiV \aKi8aip.ov((ov Kal roiv (Tvp-fid^oiv, oaov 
 
60 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS in 
 
 fJLfiV )(^p6vov e^dSi^c Sia rfjs AvSia?, ovSeu kukov e7roL[€L tovs] 
 evoiKovPTa?, po\jX6|JL€vos €ji|i€V€iv TaXs o"irov6ais rats irpos 
 TiOpavcTTiv 'Y€vo}i€vais. 
 
 The last passage to which I would refer relates to the 
 naval operations at Caunus. It will be found in chapter iv 
 (col. iii {24)-(27)), which forms part of section A. Here, 
 again, P. is very fragmentary. In Diodorus ^ the scene 
 is Caunus ; the fleet consists of two divisions, a Cilician 
 and a Phoenician ; and the latter is commanded by the 
 King of Sidon {S)v 6 XiScoploov Svuda-rrj^ er)(e Tr)v -qy^iioviav). 
 In P. the passage runs as follows : Kara Be tov av\Tov 
 
 \p6vov ^oLVLKCov [ TiKov kvevTjKovTla vrjes els 
 
 Kavuou cov [SeKa fiev eirXevcrav dno KiXi]Kia9 at Se XetirovaaL 
 
 [diTo ] ay "AKTidv 6 ^lSoovlos 
 
 [ paa-yXet Caunus, the 
 
 Cilician and Phoenician divisions, the King of Sidon, all 
 are there, and this in the compass of four or five lines. 
 
 We shall find further support for this part of our 
 case if we turn to a series of passages in Diodorus, 
 relating to the period between the year 411 and the 
 year 395, with which P. begins, which are at once peculiar 
 to Diodorus and entirely divergent from the narrative of 
 Xenophon. If we take two passages to which I have 
 already referred — the Spartan invasion of Elis and 
 Thibron's campaign in 399 — we shall find that there is 
 little resemblance in either case between the account 
 in Diodorus and the account in Xenophon. Every- 
 body who has discussed those passages (e.g. Busolt, 
 Meyer, and von Mess) assumes that the account in 
 Diodorus goes back ultimately to P. : that is, according 
 to Busolt and Meyer, to Theopompus; according to 
 von Mess, to Cratippus. But when they come to 
 
 1 XIV. 79. 8. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 61 
 
 discuss those passages they are compelled to leave 
 Ephorus out of the account. Ephorus, of course, in 
 a sense is there, because it is agreed that Diodonis 
 followed him ; he must be there, in order that Diodorus 
 may follow him ; but, for all practical purposes, he is 
 eliminated. The relations between Diodorus and P. are 
 treated precisely as if there were no intermediary.^ 
 
 In order to complete the proof, it is necessary to turn 
 to two other authors, Justin and Polyaenus, who 
 present certain extremely remarkable coincidences both 
 with P. and with Diodorus. 
 
 In Justin we can point to only a single coincidence, 
 but it is suflSciently remarkable. He is the only other 
 author who refers to the mutiny at Caunus, and in the 
 passage {VI. 2. 11) in which he alludes to it we have 
 an echo of the actual words in P. : * milites quos praefecti 
 regis fraudare stipendio soliti erant ' comes sufficiently 
 near to dvairuarOivT^^ vtto tiucov 8iaPa\X6uTa)v coy avroTs fiev 
 ov jieWova-Lv aTroSiSouai tov fiiadov tov 6(p€i\6fievov,^ One 
 must not expect too much of Justin, but for our purpose 
 he has one advantage ; he is admitted to go back 
 ultimately to Ephorus. From Justin to Ephorus is 
 a far cry, but even in Justin we can trace a coincidence, 
 not only of fact, but of expression. 
 
 With regard to Polyaenus, by far the most exhaustive 
 work on the sources of his Strategemata is the article 
 
 * I may here point out, in support of my argument, that the 
 closeness of the correspondence between Diodorus and P. so much 
 impressed the Editoi-s, that they ventured to call in question the 
 received theory that Ephorus was the source of Diodorus. They 
 expressed the opinion that this theory would have to be recon- 
 sidered. I mention this, of course, merely in order to show how 
 much the Editors themselves were impressed by these startling 
 coincidences between Diodorus and P. 
 
 ' Hell. Oxyrh, xv. 1. 
 
62 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS m 
 
 by Melber in the Jahrhilcher fiir Classische PMlologie 
 (Fleckeisen's), Supplement-Band xiv (1885), pp. 417- 
 688. There has been nothing of any importance 
 written since its publication, and it has come to be 
 treated (e.g. by Busolt) as the authoritative work on 
 the subject. The conclusion at which he arrives is that 
 the greater part of Book I, the most valuable book, by 
 far, of Polyaenus' work, is derived from Ephorus, and 
 that almost all that is valuable in Books II and III is 
 also derived from him. In other words, Ephorus is the 
 principal authority followed by Polyaenus down to the 
 year 356 B.C. The other books, with the exception of 
 certain parts of Book VII, being concerned with a period 
 later than this date, do not come into the reckoning. 
 He thinks that Polyaenus supplemented his extracts 
 from Ephorus by a few extracts from Herodotus and 
 Thucydides, but that in no case did he use Xenophon. 
 He is disposed, somewhat hesitatingly, to assign to 
 Theopompus' Hellenica one set of passages, and one only ; 
 that is, those that deal with Clearchus, the Spartan, 
 near the beginning of Book 11,^ all of which belong 
 to a single year, 402/1. They do not come from 
 Xenophon, and he thinks they did not come from 
 Ephorus ; therefore, he argues, they came, probably, 
 from Theopompus. But with that exception, so far as 
 I have been able to discover, there is not a single 
 passage in Polyaenus which he assigns to Theopompus ; 
 whereas he assigns to Ephorus the greater part, five- 
 sixths at least, of all that has any historical value in 
 the period covered by him. If Melber's conclusions 
 are correct (and there has been general agreement 
 hitherto that they are correct), it follows that there is 
 
 ^ 11. 2. 6-10. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 63 
 
 a very high degree of probability that any given passage 
 of Polyaenus during tliis period of the history will be 
 found to come from Ephorus. Meyer, of course, assumes 
 — he is bound to assume — that the sections which 
 exhibit correspondences with P. were derived from 
 Theopompus, but it is an assumption that no one 
 made before the discovery of P., and it is a pure 
 assumption. There is not a scrap of evidence in its 
 favour, other than the coincidence between Polyaenus 
 and P. 
 
 The first passage which I select is from Book I,^ and 
 it is a passage of extreme interest. One of the most 
 startling discrepancies between P. and Xenophon, as 
 well as all other authorities, is to be found in the attribu- 
 tion of the mission of Timocrates, not to Tithraustes, 
 but to Pharnabazus, and in its being put, not only before 
 the overthrow of Tissaphernes, but even before the 
 appearance of Tithraustes on the scene.^ The only 
 passage in ancient literature which agrees with this 
 statement in P. is this passage in Polyaenus : 
 
 Korcor ^apvapd^(o avfjL/ia\a>u ^ AyrjaiXdov ttjv Aaiau nop- 
 60VVT09 €7r€L(T€ TOP Uipatjif y^pvcrtov TrifjLyjraL tol9 8T]fiaya>yot9 
 Todv 7r6\^<ov Trjs *EXXa5oy, ot Xa^ovTe^ TretaovaL tols narpiSas 
 iK(pip€ii/ TOP TTyooy AaKe8aLfiouLOV9 iroXefjiou, ol jxkv SeKaa-divTe? 
 €7r€i(rav^ Kal avveoTr) ttoX^jmos KopivOtaKos' ol Se XwapTidTaL 
 Tov * Ay7](TiXaov e/c rfjs 'Acr/iay dv^KaXkaavro. 
 
 This, it must be remembered, is a passage which is as- 
 cribed, and unhesitatingly ascribed, by Melber to Ephorus. 
 
 * Polyaen. I. 48. 3. 
 
 ^ This is a certain inference from ii. 2, when compai-ed with 
 ii. 5 ; for (1) the sending of the Persian gold to Greece is mentioned 
 before the overthrow of Tissaphernes is narrated ; (2) the sending 
 of the gold had clearly been described in P. before the commence- 
 ment of our fragment ; and (3) Pharnabazus is mentioned in a 
 way which implies that it was he who sent the gold. 
 
64 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS m 
 
 The second passage^ relates to the plot against 
 Tissaphemes. It is as follows : 
 
 'ApTa|€p|T]S eTTi Tr}U T L<Ta<j)epV0V9 (TvWr)y^LV KaTCTTCfJlll/e 
 
 Ti0pa'u<rTT|V 8vo ciricrToXds KOjxi^ovTa, rrji/ /leu wpos avTov ircpc 
 Tov TToXifjLov Tov TTpos Tovs^l^WrjvaSj kiTLTp^ircov avT^ TO, irdvTaj 
 Trjv 8e 7rpo9 * ApiaXov, ottws avTov avWd^oL /zera Tidpava-Tov. 
 'Apiaio? dvayvovs ttjv eTria-ToXtju kv KoXoo'O'ais tt]S ^pv-Yias 
 /caXe? Tia-a^epvriv o)? bjiov PovXevaaaOaL 8iov rd re dXXa Kal 
 wepl tS>v ^YXXrjvoav. 6 8e firjSei^ {fTriSS/ievo? to jiev aTpaToneSov 
 KaTiXiTTCv kv XdpSeaip, avTos Sh fiera TpLaKooricov XoydSoav 
 ^ApKd8a>v Kal MlXtjo-icov d(f)LK6ii€vos kv * Apiaioi) KarcXvcv ^^7 
 Se irepl XovTpov e^^aav tov aKLvdKrjv dnedeTo. * Kpiaio^ fieToc 
 Toov OepairevTTJpcov (rvvapirdoras avTov, Kadeip^a? e/y apfidfia^av 
 KaT€ppafjLnkv7]v dyuv TiOpava-Tr} wapiScoKev. 6 Se p.^XP'- P-^^ 
 KeXaiva^v kyKUTCppappevov ijyayev, kvTavOa 8e diroT€[id)V avTOu 
 TT|V K€<|>aXTiv dveKOfJUo-c pao-iXct. ^aa-iXevs Se eirepyjre tt} 
 firjTpl napucdTLSt, rj pdXia-Ta kcrnovSdKa Tiaaa-dat Ti(ra(l)ipvr}y 
 kirl TTJ Kvpov TeXevTrj. 
 
 The account, it will be seen, is fuller than the account 
 in Diodorus, with the result that the coincidences 
 between Polyaenus and P. are even more striking than 
 those between Diodorus and P. If you read through 
 the a.ccount in Polyaenus side by side with the frag- 
 mentary lines of P., you will see that these fragments 
 suggest that we should find the closest possible corre- 
 spondence between the two narratives, if P. were intact. 
 Book VII, from which this passage comes, deals with 
 (TTpoLTT]yriiiaTa tS>v ^ap^dpcov. Melber had a theory as to this 
 book which the coincidence between P. and this passage 
 proves to be erroneous. He thought that this passage, 
 in common with a great number of other passages in 
 this book, was derived from an author who wrote at least 
 a century later than Ephorus. He is not, liowever, very 
 confident about his hypothesis, and, as a matter of fact, he 
 
 1 Polyaen. VII. 16. 1. Cf. Diod. XIV. 80. 6-8, and P. viii. 
 1, 2 (col. vii, viii). 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 66 
 
 is disposed to attribute to Ephorus a crTpaTrjyrjfjLa which 
 occurs a page or two beyond this particular one, and 
 relates to the same period. The hypothesis is clearly 
 incorrect; it is quite clear that Polyaenus either 
 followed Ephorus for this period in Book VII, as he 
 followed him elsewhere, or else followed P., whoever 
 P. was, if he were not Ephorus. 
 
 The third passage^ which I propose to discuss is one 
 in which the closest possible coincidence can be traced, 
 not indeed between Polyaenus and P., but between 
 Polyaenus and Diodorus. It relates to the dispatch of 
 Herippidas to Heraclea, in the year 399. The passage 
 is of great importance, because it relates to an event 
 which must have been narrated in Book XVIII of 
 Ephorus, the very book we are concerned with.^ As 
 the account in Polyaenus occupies no more than seven 
 lines, and in Diodorus no more than six, you must not 
 expect too much. What degree of coincidence do we 
 find ? Here are the parallel accounts. 
 
 Polyaenus II. 21. Diodorus XIV. 38. 4. 
 
 ^BpLirmSa? d<|)iK6|i€vos €ls *Ev *HpaKX€ia 8e rf ircpl 
 
 *HpdK\€iav TT^v Tpaxiviav, Tpa^Xva aTdaecDS yiuofieur]?, 
 
 o-uva-ya-Ycav kKK\r\(Tiav, irepi- 'HpLwiriSav e^eTrcfiyj/au Aa/ce- 
 
 CTTJcras Tovs oirXiras eKrjpv^e SaifiovLOL KaTaaT-qarovTa ra 
 
 ToijsTpayLVLOvs KaOia-ai'^copcs. irpdyixaTa, ^Oy 'irapa'Y€v6|JL€- 
 
 oi /lev kKoiBLaav' 6 8k eKeXevcrev vos €ls' HpdK\€iav,o'i)VTi'YO''Y€V 
 
 aifTovs, Tr€pl «v dSiKOilcri, €ls cKKX-ndiav to, ttXtjOtj, koI 
 
 AaKeSaifiovioL? Kpiaiu vno- ircptoTTJo-as €V TOis OTrXots, 
 
 a-^^eiVy coy vofjLifjLoi/ kariv kv rfj avvkXafie Toiis alriovs, Kcd 
 
 ^napTLdTiSi, SedivTa?, eTrel irdvTas dvciXcv, ovra^ Trepl 
 
 Se vno Tcov ottXitooj/ SeOevres rnvTaKoaiovs . 
 €^0) 7rvXa>v rj^Oija-av, Kal Brj 
 'irdvT€S dyxip^Srio-av. 
 
 ' Polyaen. II. 21 ; Diod. XIV. 38. 4. 
 
 ' It is narrated by Diodorus immediately after the campaign of 
 Thibron. 
 
66 THE CASE FOR EPHOEUS in 
 
 I can hardly conceive of a correspondence that could be 
 closer.^ It is quite clear that here, as in the other two 
 passages, we are compelled to choose between two 
 alternative hypotheses. One hypothesis is simplicity 
 itself. The correspondence between Diodorus and P. 
 is explained by the fact that Diodorus was excerpting 
 Ephorus, and Ephorus is P. ; the correspondence 
 between Diodorus and Polyaenus is to be explained by 
 the fact that both were following one and the same 
 authority, and that authority was Ephorus ; and the 
 correspondence between Polyaenus and P. is to be 
 explained by the fact that Polyaenus was, at one and 
 the same time, excerpting Ephorus and P. What is 
 the other alternative 1 To assume that both Ephorus 
 and Polyaenus excerpted P., P. being Theopompus, or 
 anybody else you please ; that they not only selected 
 the same incidents, but that they preserved precisely 
 the same phrases ; and the work was done so mechani- 
 cally that even in Diodorus, at third hand, the very 
 phrases used by P. can clearly be detected. 
 
 Was this, as a matter of fact, the way in which 
 Ephorus worked ? That is a question which, I think, 
 can be answered by turning to certain passages in Book 
 VIII of Thucydides, and to the corresponding narratives 
 in Diodorus. Schwartz has maintained that Ephorus' 
 work may be divided into two clearly defined parts : the 
 first part in which he was following Thucydides (and, of 
 course, Herodotus before him), and following him very 
 closely ; and the second part which begins where Thucy- 
 
 ^ I must confess that the grave discrepancies which Meyer 
 detects appear to me to be quite imaginary : e. g. ol Tpa^tViot in the 
 one, a o-Tao-is among the TpaxtVtot in the other. The excessively 
 compressed character of both versions must be taken into 
 account. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 67 
 
 elides ends. In regard to this second part, Schwartz, 
 writing in 1907, a year before the Papyrus was published, 
 says, 'It is wholly inconceivable that Ephorus could have 
 foUowed any other authority for this later period, either 
 to the same extent, or in the same manner, as he followed 
 Thucydides for the earlier period/ With that verdict I 
 have no quarrel; where I venture to differ from him is as to 
 the point at which we are to draw the line. The real line 
 of division occurs, not at the end of Book VIII of Thucy- 
 dides, as he assumes, but at the end of Book VII. This 
 is a conclusion which follows from a comparison of two 
 passages in Diodorus and Thucydides. The passages 
 which we can| compare relate to the battle of Oropus, 
 just before the fall of the Four Hundred, and the battle 
 of Cynossema.^ In Diodorus account of the battle of 
 Oropus (it is a very brief account ; only two or three 
 lines) what is insisted upon is the dissension between 
 the two Athenian commanders. Of that there is nothing 
 in Thucydides ; and necessarily so, because he mentions 
 only one commander. Clearly then the account in 
 Ephorus was widely different from the account in Thucy- 
 dides. In regard to the battle of Cynossema, we must 
 distinguish between the antecedents and consequents of 
 the battle and the battle itself. The antecedents and 
 consequents present a general resemblance to the narra- 
 tive of Thucydides, except that in the antecedents there 
 are some serious discrepancies from Thucydides. Not 
 only is the part played by Tissaphernes in Thucydides 
 attributed to Pharnabazus (that is common to all this 
 part of Diodorus' narrative ^), but in Diodorus there is 
 
 * Thucyd. VIII. 95 ; cf. Diod. XIII. 36. 3, 4. Thucyd. VIII. 
 103-6 ; cf. Diod. XIII. 39, 40. 
 ' The blunder may be Diodorus' own. 
 
 E 2 
 
68 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS iii 
 
 mention of a squadron dispatched to Rhodes under 
 Dorieus about which Thucydides says nothing, and the 
 positions assigned to the divisions of Thrasyllus and 
 Thrasybulus are reversed. In the account of the battle 
 itself, however, there is no resemblance between the 
 version of Diodorus and the version of Thucydides. 
 The central feature in Diodorus' narrative is the current 
 between Sestos and Abydos ; in Thucydides, it is the 
 promontory of Cynossema. In Diodorus, all turns 
 upon the skill of the Athenian Kvpepvrjrai^ and the 
 victory is determined by the sudden appearance round 
 a headland of an Athenian reinforcement of twenty-five 
 vessels. Thucydides knows nothing of this reinforce- 
 ment, or of the skill of the Athenian Kv^epvijTai. He 
 attributes the victory to the disorganization of the 
 Peloponnesian fleet, the result of their initial success. 
 Thus we see that, even in a period that falls within 
 the compass of Thucydides' work, Ephorus departed 
 entirely from the version of his main authority in his 
 description of the only two battles by which we can 
 judge him ; the only two, that is, which are narrated 
 by Diodorus between the Sicilian expedition and the 
 point at which Thucydides breaks off. Yet we are 
 asked to believe that, when Ephorus is following, 
 not the master Thucydides, but the hypotheti- 
 cal disciple Theopompus, and when he is describ- 
 ing military operations, he followed the disciple 
 so servilely, and so mechanically, that the very 
 expressions used by Theopompus can still be de- 
 tected in the meagre epitome of Diodorus! And here 
 we cannot fall back on the h3^othesis that Ephorus 
 is dependent on Theopompus. The latter's starting- 
 point .excludes Cynossema, as well as Oropus, from 
 his Hellenica. The evidence of Diodorus on this 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 69 
 
 point is, it is true, contradictory. On the one hand,* 
 he states that Xenophon and Theopompus began where 
 Thucydides left oif (Hcj/o^v Sk koI QeSTro/Mno^ deft hv 
 dirkXin^ QovKv8i8r]S t^v dp)(fju neTToirjuTai) — a statement 
 which is absolutely accurate as regards the Hellenics of 
 Xenophon ; on the other,^ he gives the battle of Cynos- 
 sema as the point at which Theopompus narrative 
 commenced : 6 Se a-vyypaep^vs oivTos rjpKTat pikv dirh Trj9 nept 
 Kvvh9 arjjia t/avfia^ias, e/y fjv (E>ovKv8i8r]9 KariXri^e t^v TT/oay- 
 liantav. The key is supplied by the anonymous author 
 of a life of Thucydides,^ who tells us that Thucydides 
 stopped at the battle of Cynossema, and left it to 
 Xenophon and Theopompus to narrate the rest of the 
 War : ra 8\ fiera ravra iripoi^ ypdcpeiv /careXtTre, 'B^voj>SiVTi 
 KOL Q€07r6fL7r<p* €l(rl 8€ Kal at €0e^^y fid)(^aL' o^re y^p t^v 
 8€VT€pav vavp.a\iav t^v nepl Kuroy arjpaj rjv Qeonofinos 
 eJirev, ovre t^u nepl Kv(ikov . . . , ovre t^v kv ' Apyivova-ais 
 vavfia^iav . . . ovre ... rrji/ kv Aiyos 7roTap,oi9 vavpaylav. 
 The battle of Cynossema which formed Theopompus' 
 starting-point was not the battle described by Thucy- 
 dides : it was a second battle of Cynossema. This 
 second battle can only be the engagement (or rather, 
 engagements), narrated in the barest outline at the 
 beginning of Xenophons Hellenics^ which we are 
 accustomed to call the battle of Abydos. The promon- 
 tory of Cynossema may well have played a part in 
 a series of operations which extended from Sestos 
 and Abydos to Madytus and Rhoeteum. That it 
 played an important part in Theopompus version is 
 clear; it is equally clear that it played no part in 
 that of Ephorus.* Yet Ephorus* version of Abydos 
 
 ^ XIII. 42. 5. « XIV. 84. 7. 
 
 *'' Anonymus, Vita Thiicydid. 5 ( = Theopompus, fr. 6 (d)^ G. and H.). 
 ' Diodorus XIII. 45, 46. 
 
70 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS iii 
 
 diverges from Xenophon's as widely as his version 
 of Cynossema from that of Thucydides. A conclusion 
 follows which is of first-class importance in its bearing 
 on the general question of the relation of Ephorus 
 to Theopompus. Ephorus, at any rate in his narrative 
 of battles, is capable of producing a version which 
 differs completely from that given by Thucydides or 
 Xenophon, and yet is entirely independent of any 
 material supplied by Theopompus. His source may 
 have been the inner consciousness ; it was not the 
 inner consciousness of Theopompus. Ephorus was not 
 the intermediary between Theopompus and Diodorus. 
 
 Of the other arguments in favour of Ephorus, I pro- 
 pose to discuss first the argument from style. This is 
 an argument which need not detain us long, not because 
 it is unimportant (on the contrary, its force is almost 
 overwhelming, when once the initial obstacles to the 
 identification of Ephorus with P. have been cleared 
 away), but because it is unnecessary to say much about 
 it, since its force would be admitted by all. Schwartz, 
 in his article in Hermes,^ admits that the style of P. 
 is so unlike all that he had imagined the style of 
 Theopompus to be, that he was compelled to hesitate 
 for a long while, before he could accept the identification 
 of P. with Theopompus. But the style of P. is precisely 
 what we all imagined the style of Ephorus would be, 
 were he ever recovered. Schwartz, ^ writing in 1907, 
 the year before the publication of the Papyrus, insists 
 on 'der monotone Fluss seiner Erzahlung'; a verdict 
 on Ephorus which recalls the verdict passed by the 
 Editors on P. : * the monotonous style of the author 
 
 * * Die Zeit des Ephoros' Hermes, xliv (1909). 
 
 ^ In the article EpJioros in Pauly-Wissowa's Eedl-Encyclopddie. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 71 
 
 is seldom stirred to a little life/ Busolt,^ writing 
 years before the discovery of P., describes Ephorus as 
 * nlichtern, ohne Leidenschaft und wahre Phantasie ' ; 
 while of his style he says, * seine Sprache ist kraft- 
 los und ohne Schwving/ and * Mattigkeit ' its char- 
 acteristic. It is clear that the Editors would be 
 prepared to accept these phrases as applicable to P., 
 whose style they admit to be * lifeless and verbose*. 
 I myself have elsewhere ventured to say that dullness 
 is the note of our author's style.^ One or two special 
 considerations may be advanced in support of this 
 general position. 'KKpai(j>vLov,^ as an argument for 
 Ephorus, may fairly be set against Ka/jTrao-evy/ as an 
 argument for Theopompus ; for it may be inferred 
 with certainty from Stephanus of Byzantium,^ on the 
 one hand, that Ephorus used the form 'AKpai<ppiov in 
 place of the usual ' kKpat(l)Lov, and, on the other, that 
 Theopompus used the plural form t^ 'AKpaicppia. The 
 occurrence in P. of the Ephorean form is as decisive 
 against the claims of Theopompus as any argument of 
 this kind can be ; if Theopompus habitually called the 
 place ra ' AKpaL(j>vLa^ he cannot have written chapter xi 
 of P. It is not, of course, decisive in favour of Ephorus, 
 because the form ^ AKpaL(j)VLov may have been employed 
 by Cratippus or by other writers ; it is, however, 
 extremely strong evidence in his favour. Secondly, 
 I would call attention to two phrases which occur in 
 the description of the proceedings of Demaenetus, at 
 the very beginning of the Papyrus. He is said to have 
 acted [ov fiera r^y tov] Srjfiov yvatfJLr]?, and K0ivco(rdp.€vo[9 ev] 
 dnoppriTco rfj PovXrj. The first phrase finds a parallel 
 
 * GriecJiische Gesclikhte, Bd. i, p. 157 (2nd ed.). 
 
 2 Klio, viii. ' Hell Oxyrh, xi. 3. 
 
 * Hell. Oxyrh. xv. 1. ^ *AKpai<^ta, iroAis Boiwruis. 
 
72 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS in 
 
 in two passages in Diodorus.^ The first of these 
 relates to the Athenian general Chabrias, who is 
 said to have accepted the command of the Egyptian 
 army dv^v rrjs tov SrjfjLov yvdofirj9. The second refers 
 to Sphodrias, who is stated to have been persuaded by 
 Cleombrotus to attempt his raid duev t^s yvoofirj? t5)v 
 €<p6pa)p. To the second phrase there are also two paral- 
 lels. ^ The first refers to the rebuilding of the walls of 
 Athens ; it is said of Themistocles that ev aTropprJTOLs Tjj 
 PovXfj irpoelnev. In the second passage the Athenians 
 are represented as inviting Themistocles kv diroppriTOLs 
 dneiv rfj PovXrj ra SeSoyfiiva. I should not insist SO much 
 on the actual verbal coincidences, which may doubtless 
 be paralleled elsewhere, as on the combination of the 
 verbal coincidence with the coincidence in the situation. 
 It is clear, both that the situation described at the 
 commencement of P. is the sort of situation that 
 appealed to the mind of Ephorus, and that it is 
 described in a phraseology that is characteristic of 
 his style. 
 
 I pass to another argument in favour of the identifi- 
 cation of P. with Ephorus, an argument based upon the 
 interests which are indicated in P., and upon the special 
 kind of knowledge disclosed in his narrative. There 
 are three features which can hardly fail to strike us : 
 the interest evinced in the affairs of Boeotia and Central 
 Greece ; the intimate knowledge of Asia Minor ; and 
 the equally intimate knowledge of the proceedings of 
 Conon and his fleet. First, as to Boeotia and Central 
 Greece. A hundred and forty lines, or one-fifth of the 
 total, is given up to Boeotia and Phocis, and the account 
 displays, or professes to display, an intimate knowledge, 
 
 ' XV. 29. 2 ; XV. 29. 5. ' XI. 39. 5 ; XI. 42. 5. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 78 
 
 both of the politics of those states, and of the topo- 
 graphy of the region.^ Secondly, as to Asia Minor. 
 Whether we regard the account of the second campaign 
 of Agesilaus (in the autumn of 395) as authentic or not, 
 no one can question either the fullness, or the excel- 
 lence, of the topographical detail. And as to the third 
 point, the intimate knowledge of the proceedings of 
 Conon and his fleet, that is perhaps the most salient 
 feature in the fragment. What is the bearing of all 
 this upon the claims of Ephorus 1 
 
 An interest in Boeotia has long been recognized as 
 one of the characteristics of his work.^ It is revealed 
 both in direct quotations from Ephorus, and by passages 
 in Diodorus ; it may also be detected in additions which 
 are found in Diodorus to the parallel narratives in 
 Thucydides and Xenophon. One of the best examples 
 is a very important passage in Book XI of Diodorus,^ 
 which treats of the reorganization of the Boeotian League 
 by the Spartans, and of the battle of Tanagra. Diodorus 
 devotes four or five chapters to events which occupy 
 a few lines in Thucydides, and imparts in these chapters 
 much important information. So too, in his account of the 
 battle of Delium,* Diodorus, while closely following the 
 narrative of Thucydides, makes two notable additions 
 to it. The first is the mention of the dp8p€9 eniX^KToi 
 TpiaKocTLOL, 01 r)uio)(^oi Kttl TTapapaTui KaXovfjLCvoLf who fought 
 in the front of the Boeotian line ; and the second is 
 a fairly full description of the use to which the Thebans 
 put their share of the spoils. Again, in connexion 
 
 ^ Meyer (Theqpomps Eellenika, p. 90) is clear that P. is following 
 in his account of things Boeotian, *eine sehr detaillirte lokale 
 Quelle '. 
 
 ^ Cf. Busolt, Griechisclie Geschichte, Bd. i, p. 158 (2nd ed.). 
 
 » XI. 79-83. * XII. 69, 70. 
 
74 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS in 
 
 with the account of the shipwreck of a Peloponnesian 
 squadron of 50 vessels off Mount Athos in the year 411, 
 Diodorus^ quotes (from Ephorus, by name) an kmypa\iiia 
 on an dudOrjfjia, which had been dedicated at the temple 
 at Coronea by the twelve who alone survived out of the 
 entire fleet. In this passage Ephorus' name is attested. 
 Another instance may be found in the description 
 in Diodorus^ of the building of a bridge across the 
 Euripus by the Boeotians in the year 410, after the 
 revolt of Euboea, in order to connect Euboea with 
 Boeotia. A comparison of the account in Diodorus 
 with Fragment 67 of Ephorus (a very lengthy and 
 important fragment which we owe to Strabo) attests 
 Ephorus for this passage also. Once more, in his 
 description of the unsuccessful attack of Agis upon Athens 
 in the year 408,^ Diodorus tells us that the Thebans 
 sent 900 men to the aid of Agis, and he dwells on their 
 ambition not to come short of the glories of Delium. 
 Neither of these details is in the parallel account in 
 Xenophon. Similarly, in his account of the battle of 
 Arginusae, the part played by the Boeotians, on the 
 Spartan left, is insisted on. This is not only not in 
 Xenophon's account, but it is irreconcilable with it. 
 Lastly, in the account of the rebuilding of the walls of 
 Athens by Conon, it is stated that the Thebans sent 
 500 rexviraL"^ to aid in the work. These passages and 
 many more might be adduced ; I am taking only the 
 most conspicuous examples. They prove to the hilt 
 Ephorus' interest in things Boeotian. 
 
 It would be a great mistake, however, to infer from 
 this that Ephorus was a blind partisan of the Theban 
 
 ' XIII. 41. 3. 2 xill. 47. 3-5. 
 
 ^ XIII. 72. 3-9. ' XIV. 85. 3. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 75 
 
 cause. The long passage quoted by Strabo,^ which is 
 so commonly adduced as proving the Boeotian sympa- 
 thies of Ephorus, proves nothing of the kind. It 
 proves his interest in the country, and his intimate 
 knowledge of it; it proves also his enthusiasm for 
 its hero ; but it proves that his enthusiasm was 
 centred, not on Thebes, but on Epaminondas. He 
 blames the Thebans because the only dperrj for which 
 they cared was military dp^Trj, and because they were 
 indifferent to naiSda and Xoyot ; he asserts that 
 their greatness was solely due to their great men, and 
 that their hegemony passed away immediately on the 
 death of Epaminondas.^ Surely, a blind partisan of the 
 Theban cause could, with a fair show of reason, have 
 extended the Theban hegemony for some years after 
 the battle of Mantinea. Again, in the passage in 
 Book XI of Diodorus,^ to which I have just referred, 
 the general tenor of the narrative is more favourable 
 to the Athenian cause than the account in Thucydides. 
 If any bias is to be detected there, it is an anti-Boeotian 
 bias.* No weight can, therefore, be attached to the 
 argument advanced by Meyer, and by other supporters 
 of the claims of Theopompus, that the account of the 
 outbreak of the war between Thebes and Phocis in P.^ 
 cannot be from the pen of Ephorus, on the ground that 
 it is less unfavourable to the Spartan cause than the 
 parallel narrative in Xenophon. It is, of course, true 
 that Xenophon represents the Spartans as eager for an 
 
 * Ephorus, Fragm. 67. 
 
 ^ TcA-cv-nJo-avTos yap iK€Lvov t^v yy€p.ovLav dirofiakiiv €v6v^ tov9 
 07/)8atovs. A comparison with Diod. XV. 79. 2 (ev^etos koI ra rlav 
 ®rjl3aio)v rrpdyfxaTa ttj tovtov TcXivrrj (rvvaTrWavev) proves that the 
 reference is to the period which immediately followed Mantinea. 
 
 ' XI. 81-83. * e.g. 82. 1 and 4. 
 
 * Hdh Oxyrh, xiii. 4. 
 
76 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS in 
 
 excuse to attack Thebes, whereas P/s version is to the 
 effect that, when the Phocians reported to the Spartans 
 that the Thebans had espoused the cause of the Locrians, 
 the Spartans at first did not believe the news, and con- 
 tented themselves with inviting the Thebans to submit 
 the question to arbitration; but the fact has no bearing on 
 the question of authorship, unless we assume a Thebanbias 
 on the part of Ephorus which certainly cannot be proved. 
 The interest in the affairs of the minor states of 
 Central Greece, which is so marked a feature in P., 
 can be traced, not less evidently, in Ephorus. There 
 are five references in Diodorus to Phocis and Locris in 
 a period of less than forty years.^ It is true that four 
 of the five are to be found in Thucydides, but it is 
 significant that where so much that is important in 
 Thucydides is omitted in Diodorus, these references to 
 facts which are far from important not only find a place 
 in his narrative, but are described in greater detail. 
 What is still more to the point is the special reference 
 in two of these passages ^ to the region round Mount 
 Parnassus. In both he is closely following Thucydides, 
 but there is a touch in Diodorus which is wanting in 
 Thucydides ; that touch is the mention of Parnassus. 
 The first passage relates to the Spartan expedition into 
 Doris in the year 457, in order to champion the cause 
 of the Dorians against the Phocians ; the expedition 
 that led ultimately to the battle of Tanagra. Diodorus 
 there describes the Dorians as oiKovuTas ttoXus rpeT? . . . 
 Keijiivas vno tov Xocpov tov ovofia^ofiepoi/ Hapvaacrov. In the 
 other passage, after describing Myronides' reduction of 
 Locris after the battle of Oenophyta, he adds hi^aXev 
 
 1 Diod. XI. 79. 4 ; 83. 2 ; XII. 42. 4 ; 59. 2 ; 80. 4. The period 
 is that from 457 to 418. 
 
 2 XI. 79 ; XI. 83. 
 
Ill THE CASE FOR EPHORUS 11 
 
 ch T^v Uapvaaiav, One of the most striking passages in 
 P. is the description^ of the raids and reprisals carried 
 on amongst the shepherds who pastured their flocks on 
 the debatable territory (dfjL(pi(rPrjTri(Ttfio9 x^P^) on the 
 slopes of Mount Parnassus. The passage betrays 
 unmistakably the author's interest in this region. But 
 the case is strongest with regard to the Spartan colony 
 of Heraclea. There are at least four mentions of the 
 affairs of Heraclea in Diodorus,^ and on the occasion of 
 its foundation it is asserted to have been intended as 
 a fJivpiav8po9 TToXfy — an assertion which certainly derives 
 no countenance from the narrative in Thucydides, 
 and is improbable in itself. This interest shown by 
 Ephorus in Heraclea affords a striking confirmation of 
 the contention already advanced, that the passage in 
 Polyaenus, relating to the intervention of Herippidas 
 in the affairs of Heraclea, came from Ephorus, and not 
 from Theopompus. It is extremely improbable that 
 Theopompus should have displayed a similar interest 
 in the affairs of so petty a town as Heraclea. In 
 regard to Asia Minor, who would be more likely to 
 possess an intimate knowledge of Western Asia Minor 
 than Ephorus of Cyme 1 This is, perhaps, not an argu- 
 ment against Theopompus, for Theopompus was a 
 native of Chios. For all that, the knowledge which we 
 find in P. is just the kind of knowledge which we 
 should expect to find in Ephorus. Lastly, with regard 
 to Conon and the naval warfare, Meyer makes a 
 significant admission. He concedes that in this part of 
 the narrative, which is here so singularly full of detail, 
 there is no hint or trace of the author's having availed 
 himself of any Spartan ' source ' ; his information seems 
 
 * Hell Oxyrh. xiii. 3. 
 
 ' Diod. XII. 59. 5 ; 77. 4 ; XIV. 38. 4 ; 82. 6. 
 
78 THE CASE FOR EPHORUS in 
 
 to have come entirely from the Athenian side. That is 
 not quite what we should expect from Theopompus — the 
 bitter enemy of Athens, the panegyrist of Agesilaus. 
 But it is precisely what we should expect in Ephorus. 
 I see no reason to doubt the unanimous tradition of 
 antiquity that Ephorus was the pupil of Isocrates, 
 though Schwartz thinks it had its origin in the mere 
 fact that Ephorus and Isocrates were so obviously kindred 
 spirits. And if the tradition is true, the natural link 
 between Ephorus and Conon would be found in Isocrates, 
 the intimate friend of Conon's son, Timotheus. You 
 need only turn to Oration XV, or to the letter to 
 Timotheus, to find evidence of the interest which 
 Isocrates displayed both in the father and the son. Thus 
 the hypothesis which identifies Ephorus with P. explains 
 what is one of the most striking features in the latter's 
 narrative. 
 
LECTURE IV 
 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 
 
 In the last lecture I endeavoured to establish the 
 case for Ephorus by the aid of three arguments : the 
 argument from coincidence, the argument from style, 
 and the argument from the similarity of the interests 
 evinced, and of the knowledge shown, by the two 
 authors. In the present lecture I propose to discuss 
 some of the arguments that have been advanced against 
 the identification of P. with Ephorus. The first argu- 
 ments which I shall consider are those which have been 
 advanced by Laqueur and by Niese j by Laqueur with 
 regard both to the npooLfiia of Ephorus and his date, and 
 by Niese with regard to his date. 
 
 Laqueur's argument as to the wpooifLLa may be sum- 
 marized as foUows. We know from Diodorus^ that 
 Ephorus prefixed a irpooL/xLov to each book : Diodorus 
 also prefixes a irpoot^iov to each of his extant books. 
 When, however, we turn to the irpooifiia of Diodorus, 
 we are at once struck with a marked difference among 
 them. The first three ^ conform to a common type. 
 Each of them consists of two parts ; firstly, of a rather 
 full recapitulation of the results arrived at in the 
 previous book ; secondly, of a very brief indication of 
 the contents of the book which it serves to introduce. 
 This form of irpooifiiov is entirely in accordance with the 
 practice of the age of Diodorus. In other historians of 
 
 * Diod. XVI. 76. 5 ; an excerpt from his Dictionary of Dates. 
 » Diod. I. 42 ; II. 1. 1-3 ; III. 1. 
 
80 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 the period we either find no npooifjiLov at all, as in 
 Tacitus, or else we find a irpootfiLov of this type, as in 
 Josephus. When, however, we pass to Book IV, we 
 find, from this book onwards, a TrpootfiLou of an entirely 
 different type. It begins with a reflection of a general 
 character ; sometimes it is a moral reflection (as a rule, 
 a singularly trite one) ; sometimes it is a generalization 
 respecting historical method. This type of irpooijiLov is 
 not to be paralleled in any writer of the age of 
 Diodorus ; indeed, it is difiicult to find a parallel to it 
 in any extant writer. It is Laqueur s contention that 
 the npooL/jLLa of this latter type, the irpooijjLia from Book 
 IV to Book XVI, are adapted (i. e. borrowed, in part) 
 from the npooifiia of Ephorus. If this position could be 
 established, we might conceivably hope to find in these 
 wpooifiLa of Diodorus an indication, both of the method 
 of Ephorus, and of the compass of each particular book. 
 His case is based on these pieces of evidence. Firstly, 
 the change occurs exactly at the point at which Diodorus 
 took Ephorus as his guide, i.e. the beginning of Book IV; 
 the first three books deal with subjects which were not 
 included in the scope of Ephorus' work. Secondly, an 
 examination of the wpooifiia of the four last books 
 (XVII to XX), where ex hypotJiesi Diodorus could not 
 have Ephorus as his guide, because Ephorus' work, on 
 any theory, did not reach beyond the year 341,^ reveals 
 to us the desperate straits to which he was reduced 
 when he had to compose for himself a irpootiiLov of this 
 type ; in other words, when he was compelled to 
 formulate some general proposition. Lastly, in most of 
 the irpooLfjLLa — in all, that is, which do not deal with 
 historical method—the subject is presented, not in its 
 
 1 Book XVI ends with the death of Philip (336 B.C.). 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 81 
 
 historical aspect, but in its rhetorical aspect, under the 
 categories of yjroyo? or eTriTi/jLTjai?^ and enaiyos. These 
 categories are a commonplace of the school of Isocrates; 
 and the link between Diodorus and Isocrates is clearly 
 to be found in Ephorus.^ 
 
 I think there can be no question that Laqueur has 
 proved his case, in the sense that he has proved that 
 that portion of a npooifjuou which contains a generaliza- 
 tion of some sort or other is borrowed from Ephorus. 
 There is, however, but one instance in Diodorus in 
 which we have before us the whole of a irpooifiLou of 
 Ephorus; namely, the irpoot^iov to Book XV. The diflSculty 
 that must occur to every one, when an attempt is made 
 to apply Laqueur s hypothesis to any individual case, 
 lies in the fact that a book of Diodorus never corre- 
 sponds to a book of Ephorus. What Diodorus described 
 in one book, Ephorus described in two or three ; con- 
 sequently, no one irpooifLiou of Ephorus could fit precisely 
 any one book of Diodorus, for the simple reason that 
 there could not be the same subject-matter. In the 
 irpooifiLoi/ to Book XV this diflSculty was easily sur- 
 mounted. The npooifLiov to that book must have been the 
 npooifjiiov to the book of Ephorus, probably Book XXII, 
 in which he described the battle of Leuctra. Diodorus 
 included both Leuctra and Mantinea in Book XV ; but, 
 by dragging in at the end a reference to Mantinea, he 
 succeeds in making a irpooifiiou which was intended for 
 Leuctra only do duty for a book which includes both 
 Leuctra and Mantinea. Elsewhere it is evident, at the 
 first glance, that there is not only much in these npooifjua 
 that Diodorus can have written, but much that Ephorus 
 
 ^ Cf. Isocrates, Panegyricus, 53-55, and 57, 58 ; and Diodorus 
 XV. 1. 1-2. 
 
 16J4 P 
 
82 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 cannot have written. Take the npooL/jLioi/ to Book XII 
 of Diodorus ; a book which covers the period from 450 
 to 416. The irpooifLioi/ starts with a sufficiently trite 
 moral reflection, on the dycofjLaXCa of human affairs — the 
 changes and chances of this mortal life. That ducofiaXia 
 is illustrated by the reverse of Xerxes and by the rise of 
 Athens to greatness ; not, perhaps, a peculiarly appro- 
 priate introduction to a book which begins after the 
 greatest period of Athenian achievement. The moral 
 is further enforced by examples from the history of the 
 fifty years that elapsed between the Persian and Pelo- 
 ponnesian Wars, Among the heroes of this period 
 there is found Miltiades, and among the glories of this 
 age there are reckoned the philosophies of Plato and 
 Aristotle. Similarly, in the irpooiniov to Book XIV, 
 which is the one for which the next best case can be 
 made out (the first two sections of chapter 1 may very 
 well come from Ephorus), Diodorus illustrates his moral 
 — that those who are in high places should avoid mis- 
 deeds, because it is impossible for their evil doing to 
 pass unnoticed — by the examples of the Thirty Tyrants 
 at Athens, the Spartan dpxri after the end of the Pelo- 
 ponnesian War, and the tyranny of Dionysius. Yet if 
 anything is certain, it is this, that no book of Ephorus 
 included at one and the same time the Thirty Tyrants, 
 the Spartan dpxrj, and the reign of Dionysius. With 
 regard to the irpooijiia of the other books,^ the most that 
 can be said is that a few fragments of Ephorus may be 
 found embedded in the rubble of Diodorus. If we except 
 Book XV, we cannot say, in the case of any one of the 
 
 * Laqueur regards the Trpooifjuov of Book XI as a forgery. In this 
 he is certainly correct. The irpooCp.Lov of Book XIII is a puzzle, for 
 it is a polemic against Trpooi/xia. I am not convinced by Laqueur*s 
 explanation. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 88 
 
 TTpooifiia in Diodorus, to what it was a irpooifiiov in Ephorus, 
 It is consequently impossible either to argue from the 
 TTpooifjLia of Diodorus to the historical method of Ephorus, 
 or to determine in what sense he wrote Kara yiyo? ; still 
 less is any certainty attainable as to the compass of any 
 given book. One would have thought that it was quite 
 certain that Ephorus must have described the Sicilian 
 expedition in a single book, and that to that book he 
 must have prefixed a suitable wpooifiiov; but the book in 
 Diodorus which opens with the history of the Sicilian 
 expedition is the very book to which he has prefixed the 
 npooifiLov which is a polemic against the use of npooifiLa. 
 Laqueur may have proved his case as to the Ephorean 
 origin of the Trpooifiia in Diodorus, and he may have 
 proved it up to the hilt ; his arguments leave the ques- 
 tion of authorship — of the identification of P. with 
 Ephorus — unaffected. 
 
 We come now to the arguments against the identifi- 
 cation of P. with Ephorus which are based upon the 
 supposed date of the latter's work. It is, of course, 
 evident that there is the closest possible connexion 
 between the question of authorship and the question of 
 date. The arguments which I advanced in my article 
 in Klio, in support of the position that P. must 
 have been composed before the year 356, have been 
 accepted as conclusive in a good many quarters; and 
 they have been reinforced by Judeich, who contends 
 that the description which is given in P.^ of the 
 niggardly policy of Persia towards the Greek mercen- 
 aries was only true of the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon, 
 since a new era in Persian policy opened with the 
 accession of Ochus, the next king, in 358. Can we 
 
 ' Hell Oxyrh, xiv. 2. 
 f2 
 
84 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 harmonize this date for P.^ with any date that can 
 reasonably be assigned for the composition of Ephorus'^ 
 work ? 
 
 It is maintained by Niese and Laqueur that Ephorus' 
 work was not published until after the death of 
 Alexander ; a date which would clearly be fatal to any 
 identification of P. with Ephorus. The arguments 
 which they have advanced are partly direct, and partly 
 indirect. The direct arguments are based upon two 
 quotations from Ephorus, one of which appears to 
 require a date later than the victories of Alexander, 
 and the other a date later than his death. The first 
 of these quotations comes from a passage in Tertullian,^ 
 in which Ephorus is given as the authority for a 
 dream of Philip's, before the birth of Alexander, which 
 foretold the future greatness of his son.^ The dream 
 is obviously a vaticinium 'post eventum, and the story 
 could not have originated until Alexander had become 
 famous. The second piece of direct evidence is found 
 in a passage in Clement of Alexandria,* in which it is 
 stated that the interval between the Return of the 
 Heraclidae and Alexanders crossing into Asia was 
 given by Ephorus as 735 years. Quite clearly, this 
 statement of Ephorus must have occurred at the 
 beginning of his work, his starting-point being the 
 Return of the Heraclidae, and Alexander's crossing into 
 Asia could not have been generally recognized as an 
 
 ^ Meyer, it need hardly be remarked, does not admit the force 
 of my argument. He puts the composition of P. between 85& 
 and 346. 
 
 ^ de Anima, 46; Muller*s F. H. 6r., vol. iv, p. 642, Addenda 
 to Ephorus, 150(a). 
 
 ^ The dream is also referred to in Plutarch. Plutarch, Alexander^ 
 ch. 2. 
 
 * Clemens Alexan., Stromateis^ I. 21 ; p. 403 of Potter's edition. 
 
I 
 
 IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 85 
 
 historical era until after his death. Hence it seems in- 
 evitably to follow that even the earliest books of Ephorus 
 were not published until after Alexander's death. 
 
 These passages, however, are not nearly so conclusive 
 as they may appear at first sight. The dream to which 
 Tertullian refers must have been recorded in Book XXX, 
 if Schwartz's view of its contents, which will presently 
 be discussed, is correct^; i.e. in Demophilus' continua- 
 tion of his father's work. Hence it has no bearing on 
 the date of Ephorus' work. The passage in Clement 
 of Alexandria is not free from difficulty. His actual 
 statement is that the interval between the Return of 
 the Heraclidae and Alexander's crossing into Asia, in 
 the archonship of Epaenetus (335/4), is diflferently given 
 by five different historians, whom he enumerates — 
 Phanias, Ephorus, Timaeus, Clitarchus, Eratosthenes. ^ 
 That all five of these historians should have reckoned 
 the Return of the Heraclidae from one and the same 
 era, the Sidpaa-i? of Alexander, is not very probable ; it 
 certainly looks as if, at any rate in the case of some of 
 them, the interval had been reckoned from some other 
 era, and as if the figures given by Clement were the 
 result of calculation. However that may be, the figure 
 given by Clement as Ephorus' reckoning is irrecon- 
 cilable with the figure which Diodorus found in his 
 chronological authority, who stated that Ephorus, start- 
 
 * Alexander was born in the autumn of S66{ATn&ny Anabasis, VII. 
 28. 1) ; i. e. in the Attic year 356/5. According to Schwartz, Book 
 XXIX, the last from Ephorus* own hand, ended with the year 
 367/6. 
 
 ' ttTTo Totrrov (i.e. the Ketum of the Heraclidae) iirl EwuVctov 
 apxovra, i<l>' ov ffiacnv *A\e$avSpov ciS rqv *Acriav Stafirjvaij ws fikv 
 4>ai'tas, €rr) eTrraKocria ScKaTrcvrc, ws Bk £^o/x)9, iTrraKocia rpidKovra 
 vevTif 0)5 §€ TifULios Koi K\€LTap\o^, oKTaKoaia tiKoai, ws 8c *^paToa-6€vijs , 
 iTrraKoaia (/SSopLi^KOVTa riircrapa. 
 
86 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 ing from the Heturn of the Heraclidae, inckided in his 
 work about 750 years, down to the siege of Perinthus 
 (341/40).^ If this statement, therefore, is correct, 
 Ephorus should have reckoned 756 years, and not 735, 
 from the Beturn of the Heraclidae to Alexander's 
 Sidfiaa-i?, Clement may be a good authority, but 
 Diodorus' chronological source is a still better one. 
 The statements which Diodorus derives from it can be 
 shown to be correct in the great majority of instances ; 
 in particular, the statements about historians and the 
 compass of their works are invariably correct. At any 
 rate, we are at liberty for the moment to presume that 
 the statement in Diodorus is as likely to be correct as 
 the statement in Clement. And it will presently be 
 seen that the statement in Diodorus is certainly correct, 
 and that consequently the statement in Clement is 
 certainly incorrect. 
 
 The indirect arguments are connected with one of 
 the most famous problems of Greek historiography, 
 the problem of harmonizing two statements in Book 
 XVI of Diodorus,^ both of which are derived from 
 his chronological authority. In the first passage it is 
 stated that Demophilus, the son of Ephorus, composed 
 a history of the Sacred War, which had been omitted 
 by his father, and that he took as his starting-point the 
 seizure of the temple at Delphi by Phikmelus : 
 
 Tai' ^e (rvyypa(f>i(i>v Atj^locPlXo^ fiev 6 ^F^cpopov toG Io-to- 
 pioypd<f)OV vlos Tov TrapaXeicpOivTa iroXejiov viro rod Trarpo?, 
 6yofia<r6iyTa 8k tfpov, avvT€Tayfjieyo9 kvri.v6ev rjpKTai diro rfjs 
 KaTa\rj\jr€co9 tov kv AeXcpoTs Upov Kai TTJy (TvXrjcrca)? tov 
 fjLavT€iov {fnb ^LXofirjXov tov ^coAcecoy • kyeveTO 8e 6 TrdXe/teoy 
 
 ^ Diod. XVI. 76. 5 XP^^^^ ^^ irepUXafie €T<t)v <t)(€B6v eTrraKOO-tW 
 Kttl TrevrrjKOVTa, 
 
 2 Diod. XVI. 14. 3 ; XVI. 76. 5. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 87 
 0VT09 €TTj ii/SeKa, €0)9 TTJs <f>6opd9 tS>v Siav€ifiafjLiv<ov t^ Upk 
 
 In the second passage, under the year 341/40, the 
 archonship of Nicomachus, he states that Ephorus 
 brought down his history to the siege of Perinthus ; 
 that it consisted of thirty books, and covered a period 
 of 750 years, reckoned from the Eetuni of the 
 Heraclidae : 
 
 Twy 8k avyy pacpicou *'E(^opoy fiev 6 Kvfiaio9 t^v iaropiav 
 
 €u6d8€ KaTi(TTpO(j>€V €19 T^V HcpiudoV TToXlOpKiaV 7r€pl€[\r](p€ 
 
 Sk TTJ ypacpfi 7rpd^€i9 rds re roor 'F,\\rjVcop kol Pappdp(oy, 
 dp^dp.evo9 dnb rrjs Ta>y 'HpaKXeiSan/ Ka66Sov» ^povov Sk 
 TrepiiXafie a^eSoi^ hoou iiTTaKoaicov Kal TrevrriKOPTa, /cat Pl^Xovs 
 yiypa(f)€ TpidKOVTa, irpooifiLou eKda-TTj irpoO^is. 
 
 A passage in Athenaeus ^ renders it certain that the 
 work of Demophilus was reckoned as the thirtieth book 
 of Ephorus ; i. e. that twenty-nine books only were 
 from the pen of Ephorus himself. Two explanations, 
 and two only, are possible. The first is that Ephorus 
 carried his work down to the siege of Perinthus, in 
 341/40, but that he had omitted the Sacred War from 
 his narrative, and the omission was supplied by his son 
 Demophilus. This is the explanation given by Niese 
 and Laqueur.2 The other explanation, that given by 
 Schwartz, is that Ephorus carried his narrative down to 
 the seizure of the Delphic temple by Philomelus in the 
 year 357/6, and that Demophilus thirtieth book was 
 a continuation of Ephorus' work, from the outbreak of 
 the Sacred War to the siege of Perinthus. 
 
 ' Athenaeus, VI. 232 D (= Ephorus, Fragm. 155) ""Rt^po^ ^ 
 i\r}fx6<fiLXo^ 6 vtos avTov ev r^ TpLaKOcrr^ twv loropiwv ircpi tov iv AcAc^ois 
 icpov Aeywv <f>r)(TLV. 
 
 ^ Busolt's view is substantially the same : Griech. GescJu Bd. i, 
 pp. 155-6 (2nd ed.). 
 
88 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 Laqueur^ bases his case upon the following arguments. 
 Firstly, Diodorus' words clearly imply that Demo- 
 philus' work was confined to a history of the Sacred 
 War; tov irapa\€i<p6evTa ttoX^jxov implies an omission, 
 not a continuation, and the omission which he supplied 
 was the narrative of the War. Secondly, the supple- 
 mentary clause in the passage in Diodorus — iyevero Sk 
 6 TToXefjLos ovTos ht] hBeKa — can only come from his 
 chronological source, and must therefore indicate the 
 range of Demophilus' work, which is thus proved to 
 have been restricted to the eleven years from 357 to 
 346. Thirdly, all the extant fragments of Book XXX 
 refer to the Sacred War. Lastly, it is impossible to 
 suppose that the events of sixteen years can have been 
 crammed into a single book. 
 
 Before we can estimate the value of these arguments, 
 it is necessary to turn aside to another problem — of all 
 the problems presented by the work of Diodorus per- 
 haps the strangest. It has long been observed that 
 in Diodorus' narrative of the outbreak of the Sacred 
 War 2 the early stages of the war are told in duplicate. 
 If we compare chapters 23 to 27 with chapters 28 
 and 29, we see at a glance that, although Diodorus 
 narrates the events as consecutive, they are, in reality, 
 not consecutive but synchronous. In other words, the 
 two narratives are parallel narratives of the same inci- 
 dents, though Diodorus himself is entirely unaware of 
 the fact. In both versions we have the same account 
 of the origin of the dispute — the fine imposed on the 
 Spartans, at the instance of the Thebans, for the seizure 
 of the Cadmea, and the fine subsequently imposed on 
 the Phocians for the cultivation of some sacred land ; 
 
 ^ Laqueur has argued the question more fully than Niese. 
 ' Diod. XYI. 23-31. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 89 
 
 in both we are told of the measures taken bv Philomelus 
 to repel the anticipated invasion of Phocis — the enrol- 
 ment of troops, and the confiscation of the property of 
 his opponents ; in both, the invasion of Delphi by the 
 Locrians and their defeat by Philomelus are narrated, 
 and in both, again, the invasion of Locris by the 
 Phocians and the devastation of the country ; and, 
 lastly, both versions describe the a-Taa-i? in the Amphi- 
 ctyonic League, where the majority sided with the 
 Thebans against the Phocians, while the minority, 
 consisting of Athens, Sparta, and certain of the Pelopon- 
 nesian states, took the Phocian side. These incidents 
 are common to both accounts, but they are narrated 
 in a different order, and, in some respects, in a different 
 form. The origin of the dispute, for instance — the 
 fines imposed on the Spartans and the Phocians — is 
 told in the earlier section at the beginning of the story, 
 as an introduction to it ; in the later section it is told 
 at the end, by way of an addition. Similarly, the 
 secret support promised by Archidamus and the Spartans 
 is described much more fully and accurately in the 
 first version than in the second. In the first version, 
 again, the name of the Thracidae is given in connexion 
 with the confiscations ; in the second version it is merely 
 stated that the goods of the wealthiest of the Delphians 
 were confiscated (tov9 Se A€X<povs evSaifiovia Kal wXovtco 
 Siacpipovra? kirpd^oTO nXijOos \pr]iidTCiiv) ; while, ^er CO/l^ra, 
 in the second version the Phaedriad Kocks are named 
 as the scene of the victory over the Locrians, it being 
 merely stated in the first version that the battle was 
 in the neighbourhood of Delphi. Lastly, there are 
 two different accounts of the punishment which was 
 meted out to the Phocian troops as being UpSavXoi, 
 The accounts contained in the two sections, therefore. 
 
90 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED ly 
 
 are two independent accounts. Only one explanation 
 has ever been offered of this phenomenon. It is that 
 at this point, the end of chapter 27, Diodorus laid 
 aside the authority which he had hitherto followed, 
 and turned to a new one. As that authority was 
 Ephorus, it means that at this point he laid aside 
 Ephorus ; and the only satisfactory reason that can 
 be suggested for this is that Ephorus failed him at 
 this precise point ; i. e. that this was the point at which 
 Ephorus' narrative stopped. The hypothesis can be 
 proved to be so far true, in that it can be demonstrated 
 that Diodorus did not follow Demophilus' thirtieth 
 book for the rest of the Sacred War. This is proved 
 quite conclusively by a comparison of a fragment of 
 this book, to which reference has already been made, 
 with the parallel passage in Diodorus.^ The passages 
 relate to the retribution that is alleged to have over- 
 taken all who had part or lot in the plunder of the 
 Delphic temple. In both versions the retribution is 
 extended to the wives of the Phocian generals, who had 
 been guilty of decorating their persons with some of 
 the most sacred offerings at Delphi, such as the neck- 
 laces of Helen and Eriphyle. In the sober narrative 
 of Demophilus we read nothing worse than that the 
 wife of one eloped with an Epirote youth, and that 
 the other plotted her husband's death. In the version 
 followed by Diodorus a more lurid vengeance is reserved 
 for these offenders. The wife of one descended to the 
 streets (e/y iTaLpLKrjv aia^vvriv iveTrea-ey), while the SOn 
 of the other went mad and set fire to the family home, 
 
 ^ Ephorus, Fragm. 155 ; Diod. XVI. 64. 2. Among the many- 
 incredible things to be found in Muller*s Fragmenta Historicorum 
 Graecorum, not the least incredible is his note at the end of this 
 fragment, * Eadem fere leguntur apud Diodor. XVI. 64.' 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 91 
 
 in the flames of which he and his mother perished. It 
 is certain, therefore, that Diodorus did not make use 
 of the thirtieth book of Demophikis. 
 
 When we turn from Diodorus' narrative of the Sacred 
 War to his narrative of Sicilian history in the same 
 book, we are presented with a problem almost as sur- 
 prising. Diodorus has narrated the expedition of Dion 
 in the earlier chapters of Book XVI, at considerable 
 length and with much detail ; and he has brought the 
 story down to Dion's victory over the mercenaries, his 
 reconciliation with the Syracusans, and his election as 
 o-TpaTTjyos avTOKpaTcop, At this point the story of Dion's 
 career breaks off, and the narrative of Sicilian affairs 
 is not resumed until the expedition of Timoleon.^ 
 Here, again, the explanation suggests itself, that 
 Diodorus turned in his Sicilian history from the 
 authority he was following to a fresh authority, and 
 failed to find his place in Sicilian history, as he failed 
 to find his place in the Sacred War. In the case of 
 the Sacred War, we started, it is true, with the assump- 
 tion that the authority which he had been following 
 was Ephorus ; in the case of Dion, we cannot assume 
 this without proof, because, although Diodorus appears 
 to have followed Ephorus for the Sicilian history in 
 the book immediately preceding this (Book XV), he 
 follows, as a rule, Timaeus, rather than Ephorus, when 
 he is treating of Sicily. However, if it may not be 
 assumed, it can be proved. If we compare the passage 
 in Plutarch's Life of Dion in which he describes the 
 death of the historian Philistus with the parallel nar- 
 rative in Diodorus, we shall find incontrovertible evid- 
 ence that Ephorus was the authority which Diodorus 
 
 ^ There are two passing references from the chronological 
 source, but nothing from the main authority. 
 
92 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 followed in his account of Dion's expedition.^ Plutarch 
 tells us that according to Timonides of Leucas, the 
 companion of Dion and the author of the memoirs 
 from which Plutarch's narrative is mainly derived, 
 Philistus was captured alive, and that Timaeus added 
 that he was dragged by the heels through the streets 
 by an infuriated mob ; but that according to Ephorus 
 he committed suicide. As this latter tale is the version 
 given by Diodorus, it is evident that Diodorus fol- 
 lowed Ephorns, and not Timaeus, for the expedition 
 of Dion. 
 
 As Schwartz has pointed out, the connecting link 
 between Diodorus' duplication of the initial stages of 
 the Sacred War and the strange break in his narrative 
 of Dion is to be discovered in the date. Of the date 
 of Dion's election to the a-TpaTrjyia there is no manner 
 of doubt. We know from Timonides ^ that the ex- 
 pedition sailed on August 9, 357, when the moon was 
 eclipsed. His election as a-rpaTrjyo? avTOKparcop was a 
 few month later, and therefore fell in the Attic year 
 357/6. That was also the date of the seizure of the 
 temple by Philomelus.^ Therefore the point of time 
 at whic Diodorus turned from Ephorus to another 
 authority for the Sacred War was precisely the point 
 at which he laid aside Ephorus in his narrative of the 
 
 ^ Plut. Dion, 35 ; Diod. XVI. 16. 3. 
 
 ^ Ap, Plut. Dion, 24. 
 
 ' 357/6, the archonship of Agathocles, is the date given by 
 Diodorus' chronological authority (XVI. 14. 3), and by Pausanias 
 (X. 2. 2). It follows also from the evidence of its contem- 
 poraries, Demosthenes and Aeschines. The latter gives the length of 
 the War as 10 years, and it ended towards the close of the Attic 
 year 347/6. Cf. Aeschines, de Fals. Leg. 131 ; in Ctesiph. 148 ; 
 Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ii. 152 (3rd ed.). 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 93 
 
 Sicilian history. Laqueur wholly fails to explain this 
 coincidence. 
 
 Laqueur 8 hypothesis, therefore, fails to satisfy a 
 condition which must be regarded as an essential con- 
 dition of any adequate solution of the problem. But 
 quite apart from this, his explanation involves some 
 manifest difficulties. There is, first of all, the difficulty 
 of conceiving a history of Philip's reign from wliich 
 the Sacred War was omitted, especially in a writer 
 who wrote Kar^ yei/o^. There is the further difficulty 
 of finding room in any book, or books, of Ephorus for a 
 history of Philip which extended over a space of sixteen 
 years. For here the evidence of the fragments is satisfac- 
 tory and complete. Book XXV brought the narrative 
 down to the battle of Mantinea, in 362 ; Books XXVIII 
 and XXIX gave the Sicilian history under Dionysius 
 the Elder and Dionysius the Younger. This only leaves 
 Books XXVI and XXVII free. Laqueur admits that 
 Book XXVI is wanted for the affairs of Greece between 
 362 and 357 — not too large an allowance. We 
 have thus to get the whole of the reign of Philip 
 down to the year 341, minus the Sacred War, into one 
 book. Book XXVII. That is too much even for Laqueur. 
 He is forced to fall back on the amazing hypothesis 
 that the subject of Book XXVII was the history of 
 the consolidation of Philip's power against the northern 
 barbarians, down to the moment when he came into 
 contact with Athens at the siege of Perinthus. And 
 this from Ephorus! Ephorus, who, according to Laqueur, 
 wrote, here as elsewhere, Kara yiuos ; Ephorus, who, 
 also according to Laqueur, had prefixed to this very 
 Book XXVII (if I understand his somewhat involved 
 argument aright) the npooifiiov which we find at the 
 beginning of Diodorus Book XVI — a npooifjiiov which 
 
94 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 insists on the advantages accruing from narrating 
 Tj TToXecou rj PacnXicov irpd^eLS avToreXus air dp^rj^ H-^XP'^ "^^^ 
 riXov?^ and points out the drawbacks attendant on 
 a method which tempts one to present to one*s readers 
 rifiiTeXel? Trpa^ety. And this was the irpooifxiou to a book 
 which contained a history of Philip, from which most 
 of what was most important in that reign was omitted, 
 and which brought it down to a point at which there 
 was no reason why the narrative should end — the siege 
 of Perinthus ! For it assuredly was not at the siege of 
 Perinthus that Philip first came in contact with the 
 power of Athens. What about her support of the 
 pretender Argaeus, at the very beginning of his reign ? 
 And, above all, what about the question of Olynthus 1 
 Such a theory, I venture to think, need not detain us 
 longer. 
 
 It follows, then, that Schwartz has made out a case of 
 overwhelming strength ; that there can be no real doubt 
 that Ephorus brought down his narrative only to the 
 year 357/6, that he was surprised by death in the 
 midst of his labours, and that the material which 
 he left behind was worked up by his son. This 
 material sufficed for a fairly full account of the Sacred 
 War ; the remaining years must have been narrated in 
 little more than outline. From this an important con- 
 clusion as to the method of Ephorus may be deduced. 
 If Ephorus carried down his narrative to a point 
 which corresponds to chapter 27 of Diodorus' Book XVI, 
 it is quite clear that he did not write history Kara yivos 
 in the sense in which Laqueur contends, because he had 
 already advanced some way into the Sacred War when 
 he broke off; that is to say, it is quite clear that 
 Ephorus did not intend to reserve the Sacred War for 
 separate treatment. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 95 
 
 But why did Demophilus carry down his narrative 
 to the siege of Perinthus — to that point, and no farther? 
 That is a question which, as yet, nobody has succeeded 
 in answering. I shaU venture to put before you a 
 solution of the problem. 
 
 Professor Lehman n-Haupt, assuming the correctness 
 of Clement's statement that Ephorus reckoned 735 years 
 from the Return of the Heraclidae to the Sid^aais of 
 Alexander, has argued that this period of 735 years 
 must imply a reckoning by generations, in which a 
 generation was regarded as the equivalent of 35 years.* 
 735 is=21 x35 ; but it cannot be divided either by 30 
 or by 33. He suggests that Ephorus had obtained this 
 reckoning from Hecataeus. As he does not think that 
 Ephorus survived Alexander's SidPaa-i?, he is disposed 
 to attribute to Demophilus the selection of that event 
 as an era. It follows that the era from which Ephorus 
 reckoned the Eeturn of the Heraclidae must have been 
 the year 369,^ the year of Epaminondas' first invasion 
 of the Peloponnese, and that he must have reckoned it 
 twenty generations from the Return of the Heraclidae 
 to this first invasion. 
 
 I need hardly point out that the hypothesis of a 
 generation reckoned at 35 years is not a veiy pro- 
 bable one. There is no positive evidence of it in the 
 case of Hecataeus, and no evidence whatever for it in 
 the case of Ephorus, except this particular statement 
 in Clement of Alexandria. But a generation of 30 
 years was one of the commonest of all computations. 
 
 * Gercke und Norden, Emleitungy iii, p. 92. Cf. Klio^ iv (1904), 
 p. 123. 
 
 * If we reckon back 35 years from 334, the date of Alexander's 
 Stdpaa-i^f we arrive at 369, the year of Epaminondas* first invasion 
 of the Peloponnese. 
 
96 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 It has been already pointed out that Clement's figure, 
 735 years, has no claim to be preferred to the figure 
 given by Diodorus' chronological source, 750 years. 
 750 will divide by 30 ; it is clearly the equivalent of 
 25 generations, according to the ordinary computation 
 of a generation at 30 years. If you subtract 30 from 
 750, you will get 720 ; you will be taken back from the 
 archonship of Nicomachus (341/40), in which the siege 
 of Perinthus began, to the archonship of Phrasiclides 
 (371/70), the year of Leuctra. To the historian who 
 made his starting-point the Beturn of the Heraclidae 
 and the foundation of the Spartan state, what era could 
 be more appropriate than the year of Leuctra, w^hich 
 saw the fall of Spartan greatness? And what year 
 could be so natural to the panegyrist of Epaminondas ? 
 Of all the eras that could be suggested between the end 
 of the Peloponnesian War and the Stdpaa-i? of Alexander, 
 none is so obvious as Leuctra. About the year of 
 Leuctra there is no doubt. It is given by Diodorus,^ 
 by Pausanias,^ and by Plutarch,^ who gives the actual 
 date, the fifth day of Hecatombaeon. About the date 
 of the siege of Perinthus there is a little more difiiculty.* 
 Both in his general narrative and in a passage derived 
 from his chronological source Diodorus places the siege 
 of Perinthus in the archonship of Nicomachus, while 
 he relates the siege of Byzantium and the formal 
 declaration of war by Athens under his successor 
 Theophrastus (340/39) ; in the latter case absolutely 
 correctly, as is proved by the well-known fragment of 
 
 ^ Diod. XV. 51-56. ^ Pausanias VIII. 27. 8. 
 
 ^ Plutarch, Agesilaus, 28. 
 
 * There is, however, no doubt whatever about the thirtieth book 
 of Ephorus ; it ended in the archonship of Nicomachus (341/40) 
 Diod. XVI. 76. 5. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 97 
 
 Philochorus.^ Philochorus, however, puts the siege of 
 Perinthus, as well as the siege of Byzantium, in the 
 archonship of Theophrastus. This has long since been 
 seen to be an error/^ It looks as if Philochorus had 
 confused the beginning of the siege of Perinthus with 
 the declaration of war by Athens. Clinton argues, 
 quite conclusively, I think, that Demophilus carried 
 his narrative down to the commencement of the siege 
 of Perinthus, and broke off there, precisely as Ephorus 
 carried his narrative down to the outbreak of the Sacred 
 War. Beloch"^ holds exactly the same view as to the 
 date of the siege of Perinthus. He says there cau be 
 no question that it began in the early part of the 
 summer of 340 (i. e. in the Attic year 341/40). The 
 question then, to which no satisfactory answer has 
 been forthcoming hitherto, has been answered ; the 
 problem is solved. Demophilus carried his narrative 
 down to the siege of Perinthus, because Ephorus had 
 been interrupted by death in the midst of the twenty- 
 fifth generation from his starting-point, the Eetum of 
 the Heraclidae. The task which Demophilus under- 
 took was the completion of the narrative down to the 
 end of that generation for nearly half of which his 
 father had already told the tale. 
 
 If this explanation is correct, if the era chosen by 
 Ephorus was the year 371, the year of Leuctra, we have 
 here a striking confirmation of the view that Ephorus 
 wrote soon after 356 ; at any rate, not much later than 
 350.* But if Ephorus was writing his twenty-ninth 
 book soon after the year 350, it is quite certain that he 
 
 1 Fragm. 135. 
 
 ' e.g. by Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, ii. 160 (3rd ed.). 
 
 ' Griech. Gesch., Bd. ii, p. 551, note 8. 
 
 * It is the view of Schwartz among others. 
 
 1624 G 
 
98 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 must have written his eighteenth book before the year 
 356, which is exactly the date which I have postulated 
 for P. And I cannot admit that Harpocration's reference 
 to Datus stands in the way of this conclusion. Datus 
 found a place in the fourth book of Ephorus; that is 
 certain : and its change of name to Philippi, in 356, 
 was mentioned by Ephorus ; that too is certain : what 
 is far from certain is that the change of name was 
 mentioned in the fourth book. Diodorus^ points to 
 Book XXVII rather than to Book IV. But even if it 
 could be proved that the change of name was mentioned 
 in Book IV, does it follow that Book IV was composed 
 after 356, and that Book XVIII must, in consequence, 
 have been composed long after 356? There are 
 references in the later books of Herodotus to incidents 
 of the Peloponnesian War, but few would care to 
 maintain that these references prove that these books 
 were composed after 430. Different editors have held 
 different views as to the date of their composition, but 
 no editor, so far as I am aware, has contended that it is 
 impossible, or even improbable, that these references 
 should have been inserted by Herodotus, when he was 
 ' touching up ' his work with a view to publication. 
 Such a suggestion may be false ; it is not, in itself, 
 improbable. What is probable in Herodotus is not 
 improbable in Ephorus ; nothing is more likely than 
 that the allusion to Philippi should have been introduced 
 long after the composition of the book in question. 
 And after all, how much do we know, either as to the 
 order in which the books were written, or as to the 
 method of their publication? The later books may 
 have been composed before the earlier, and the whole 
 
 ^ XVI. 8. 6. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 99 
 
 work may have been published by Demophilus after 
 his fathers death. The former of these suppositions 
 is not very probable, but the latter is extremely 
 probable. 
 
 This conclusion has a most important bearing upon 
 another problem, connected both with P. and with 
 Ephorus; the question of their relation to the Hellenics 
 of Xenophon. In P. there is not a single certain trace 
 of the Hellenics, It has, indeed, been argued that the 
 words ^ KaiTOi rivh Xiyova-iv atria yevea-dai to. irap iKcivov 
 (i. e. Timocrates) xprjfiaTa rod ovarrjuai tovtov^, which occur 
 towards the beginning of the Papyrus, contain a reference 
 to Xenophon*s statement that the war was caused by 
 the gold brought by Timocrates. Meyer, however, 
 admits that this is an erroneous interpretation of the 
 passage, on the ground that Xenophon expressly excul- 
 pates the Athenians from the charge of taking the gold, 
 whereas it is implied in P. that the Athenians were 
 included among the recipients in the version to which 
 he alludes. There is no other trace anywhere in P. 
 of the Hellenics of Xenophon. How stands it with 
 Ephorus 1 2 Firstly, what is the evidence of the 
 fragments 1 There is one fragment which has been 
 alleged to contain decisive evidence of Ephorus* 
 acquaintance with Xenophon s work. It is the fragment ' 
 explanatory of the nickname 'Sisyphus' applied to 
 Dercylidas, which has been quoted in a previous lecture. 
 I can hardly imagine a weaker argument. Dercylidas 
 was engaged chiefly in the neighbourhood of Ephorus' 
 native place, Cyme. Is it inconceivable that Ephorus, 
 
 ' Hell Oxyrh. ii. 2. 
 
 ' In order to simplify the problem, I confine myself to Books 
 lll-\lloi the Hellenics, 
 ' Fragm. 130. 
 
 g2 
 
100 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED ly 
 
 if he lived in the first half of the fourth century (he may 
 well have been a boy at the time of DercyHdas' cam^ 
 paign), should have heard from the contemporaries of the 
 campaign the explanation of the nickname given to the 
 Spartan commander 1 Secondly, what can be inferred 
 from Diodorus '? Meyer maintains that Diodorus' 
 narrative of the campaigns of Dercylidas ^ proves that 
 Ephorus was there following Xenophon. The coin- 
 cidence of the two narratives is of so general a character 
 that I submit that no argument can be based upon it. 
 And here I must appeal to Schwartz. No higher 
 authority can be invoked than Schwartz's article on 
 Ephorus, written, as it was, the year before the dis- 
 covery of the Papyrus, when there was no possible con- 
 troversial interest to serve. What is his verdict 1 He 
 can find no definite trace anywhere of the Hellenics ; he 
 doubts if Ephorus used Xenophon's work even to deter- 
 mine subordinate points. 'Einen spezifisch xenophon- 
 tischen Zug habe ich nicht finden konnen; ich bezweifle, 
 dass er die Hellenika auch nur accessorisch herange- 
 zogen hat/ " But if P. wrote before 356, and if Ephorus 
 wrote his eighteenth book before 356, the explanation 
 is not far to seek, seeing that Xenophon's Hellenics 
 were not published before that year. P. did not employ 
 the Hellenics as an authority, and Ephorus did not 
 employ the Hellenics as an authority, for one and the 
 same reason — the simple reason that they were not 
 available. The importance of this conclusion will be 
 obvious when we come to consider the question of 
 authority. At any rate we may dismiss from our minds 
 the notion that P. departs from Xenophon because his 
 
 ' Diod. XIV. 38. 7 ; 39. 4-6. 
 
 ^ Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddiej Bd. vi, p. 12. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS ^XA'mifKD 101 
 
 main object, to use Busolt's phrase, is to * go one 
 better ' {ilbertrumpfen). 
 
 Of the other arguments which have been advanced 
 against the identification of the author of our fragment 
 with Ephorus, one has already been discussed.^ It is the 
 argument which is based on the discrepancies between 
 the account in P. of Agesilaus' advance on Sardis and the 
 corresponding narrative in Diodorus. As I have already 
 indicated, there is only one of these discrepancies which 
 constitutes a serious objection to the identification with 
 Ephorus. It must be admitted that the ravaging of 
 Tissaphernes TrapaSeia-os is an important incident in 
 Diodorus' version, and it must also be admitted that it is 
 not easy to find room for it in the fragmentary columns 
 of P. There remain, however, certain further objections 
 which demand consideration. 
 
 We may take first the argument which is based on 
 the occurrence in chapter xi of the Papyrus of a descrip- 
 tion of the constitution of Boeotia. If our fragment is 
 part of the eighteenth book of Ephorus, why, it may be 
 asked, did not Ephorus describe the constitution in an 
 earlier part of his work '? Why did he not describe it, 
 for instance, either after the battle of Coronea, in 446, 
 or at the time of the complicated negotiations between 
 the Corinthians and the Boeotians, in the autumn of 
 421, which broke down on the question of the submission 
 of the arrangements to the four fiovXai (raT^ ria-aapai 
 Pov\ai9 tS>v BofoTcoj')?2 This argument does not appear 
 to be conclusive. In the first place, in a writer who 
 is so discursive as P. it is dangerous to argue that 
 he must have introduced any particular piece of 
 information at any particular place ; and such an 
 
 ' In Lecture III. ' Thuc. V. 38. 
 
i^ Tlie QABE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 argument is peculiarly dangerous when applied to an 
 ancient historian.^ Secondly, we must remember the 
 difference in the scale of Ephorus' narrative before and 
 after the end of the Sicilian expedition. Thirdly, of 
 course, the objection would disappear if we accept the 
 theory that Ephorus' history of the fourth century was 
 written first, and the earlier history, down to the year 
 411, was written later; i.e. that he began with 
 contemporary history, and then conceived the idea of 
 entering upon a universal history. I will not insist 
 upon this, however, because I do not think that this 
 theory can be proved. 
 
 A second objection is connected with the eVoy 6y8oov 
 in chapter iv. It is argued that this year, whatever 
 year it was, whether 403/2 or 402/1, must have 
 marked an epoch for the author of this work ; and 
 not only must it have marked an epoch, but it must 
 have also marked the beginning of a new section of 
 his history. We are at liberty to assume this of the 
 Hellenica of Theopompus, because the fragments are so 
 few that we may assume almost anything; but we 
 cannot assume it of Ephorus. A similar objection has 
 been based on the commencement of the Papyrus, which 
 has been held (e. g. by the Editors) to indicate that 
 a new book, or a new part of the work, began where 
 the Papyrus itself begins. Book X of Theopompus may 
 conceivably have begun there, but Book XYIII of 
 
 ^ Thucydides is far from being a discursive writer ; yet no one 
 would have expected antecedently that a digression on Harmodius 
 and Aristogiton would find a place in the story of the Sicilian 
 expedition. We shall do well to remember the fallacious argu- 
 ments which have been based on his silence as to the increase of 
 the <^opos in 425. His omission to mention it in the history of 
 that year is almost incomprehensible ; but the solid fact is that he 
 does omit it. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 108 
 
 Ephorus cannot conceivably have done so. I cannot 
 attach as much value as most critics attach to the 
 objection which is based on the (^tos SySooy. The passage 
 is so much mutilated that we cannot determine to what 
 it refers; all that we can say is that the year 403/2 (or the 
 year 402/1) is a most extraordinary moment to choose 
 for one's era. The argument may be allowed to have 
 some weight, as advanced by those who hold (as 
 Mr. Underbill does) that P. began at the point from 
 which the croy 6y8oov is reckoned ; but it has very little 
 force as advanced by those who identify P. with Theo- 
 pompus, because they have to postulate, without the 
 least shadow of evidence, that at that very year 
 Theopompus made a great division of his work into 
 two parts, and made a fresh start. In a sense, the 
 argument from the beginning of the Papyrus is 
 destructive of the argument from the eroy 6y8oou, We 
 may argue that a new book began at chapter iv, with 
 the summer of the eighth year {toO [B]ipov9 rfj /iku [ . . . . 
 . . . .] €Toy 6ySoov) ; or we may argue that a new book 
 began at the beginning of section A of the Papyrus : 
 we cannot argue both things at once. If a new book 
 began at chapter iv, a new book did not begin at 
 the beginning of section A ; if it began at the beginning 
 of section A, it did not begin at chapter iv. And, 
 after all, what is the evidence that Ephorus' seventeenth 
 book, the book that preceded the eighteenth, did not 
 begin in 403/2, or in 402/1 '? It is invariably assumed 
 that it began at the end of the Peloponnesian War, on 
 the strength of the passage in Diodorus^ in which it is 
 stated that Ephorus narrated the death of Alcibiades 
 in his seventeenth book. As the death of Alcibiades 
 
 » Diod. XIV. 11. 2. 
 
104 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 occurred in 404/3, it is commonly inferred that 
 Ephorus' seventeenth book must have begun before the 
 end of that year, which would almost certainly imply 
 that it began immediately after the end of the Pelo- 
 ponnesian War. A comparison, however, of this passage 
 with the opening words in chapter 22 of the same book 
 suggests that the death of Alcibiades was narrated 
 as an episode in the story of the Ten Thousand.^ 
 Consequently, if it were essential, though I maintam 
 it is not essential, to assume that Book XVII of 
 Ephorus began in the year 403/2, this particular 
 passage would not stand in the way of the assumption. 
 The answer to the question where Book XVII began 
 depends upon the answer to another question, that of 
 the length of Ephorus narrative of the march of the 
 Ten Thousand. 
 
 Closely connected with the last argument is an 
 objection which I can anticipate, though I am not 
 aware that it has been formulated. It may be asked 
 how we can assign to Book XIX of Ephorus a range 
 of subject which would be consistent at once with the 
 limits which have been assumed, and with the scale of 
 treatment which has been postulated, for Book XVIII. 
 If the latter book ended with the recall of Agesi- 
 laus, Book XIX must have started with the spring, or 
 early summer, of 394 ; it must have included Nemea 
 and Agesilaus' homeward march, as well as Coronea 
 and Cnidus. The terminus ad quern is usually found 
 in the Peace of Antalcidas, on the strength of two 
 fragments, 138 and 136. From the former of these it 
 
 ^ Compare the words at the beginning of XIV. 22 6 8e ^aa-iXivs 
 'Apra^cp^S Kttl TraXat /jlcv tjv irapa ^apvafid^ov 7r€7rv(rfji4vo<s on ktA. 
 with the story of Alcibiades' death, and Pharnabazus' motives, as 
 told in XIV. 11. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 106 
 
 appears that the SioiKia/xS? of Mantinea, whicli belongs 
 to the period immediately following the Peace, found 
 a place in Book XX ; from the latter, that the (rrdais 
 between the citizens of Clazomenae and an exiled 
 faction at Chyton, which is referred to in an inscrip- 
 tion, the date of which is immediately anterior to the 
 Peace, was narrated in Book XIX.^ I am disposed to 
 accept the Peace as the terminus ad quern, but not 
 on the ground of the ardaLs at Clazomenae. True, 
 hostilities are going on in 387/6 between ol kirl Xvt^ and 
 the 8fifio9 of Clazomenae ; but this is far from proving 
 that the reference in Ephorus was to an incident in this 
 particular year. Such feuds had a way of being pro- 
 tracted ones, as we may see from the instance of Megara 
 and the exiles at Pegae.^ If then the Peace is taken as 
 the terminus ad quern. Book XIX must have included 
 no less than eight years (394 to 387), as against the five, 
 or a little more, that we have assumed for the previous 
 book. Is it conceivable, it may be urged, that a work 
 planned on the scale of P. can have comprised eight 
 years in a single book? To this it may be answered 
 that a comparison based on the mere number of years 
 is apt to be misleading. What matters is, not the 
 number of the years, but the importance of the events 
 that occurred in them. Thucydides covers seven years 
 in Book V ; in Book II he covers only three. No 
 doubt, some of the years included in this period were 
 important ones ; e. g. 394 and 393, and the Attic year 
 
 . * For Chyton cf. Ephorus, Fragm. 136, Hicks and Hill, Greek 
 Inscriptions, 96 (=DittenbGrger, SyJJoge^, 73), Aristot. PoUticSy 
 VIII. 3. 15. The inscription is dated in the archonship of Theo- 
 dotus, 387/6. 
 
 ' Cf. Thucyd. III. 68 (427) ; IV. 66 (424). The «rr<{o-is had lasted 
 at least three years. 
 
106 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 390/89 ; but many of the years appear to have been 
 unimportant ones. Of the later years of the Corinthian 
 War Professor Bury says, ' The military events of these 
 years are not of great interest ; our knowledge of them 
 is meagre.' ^ If our knowledge is meagre, it is probably 
 because there was little to be known ; even a writer 
 as discursive as P. may have found comparatively 
 little to say. In Diodorus, if any inference can be 
 drawn from this, the last two years of the War are 
 a blank. 
 
 Another argument on which some stress has been 
 laid is the alleged inconsistency between the bias 
 and sympathies which have been usually assumed for 
 Ephorus and those which are observable in P. Here, 
 again, the most formidable of the alleged inconsistencies 
 has been discussed, and disposed of, in an earlier lecture.^ 
 It is true that the fragments betray the interest of 
 Ephorus in Boeotia, as well as his enthusiasm for 
 Epaminondas ; but it is also true that an interest in 
 Boeotia is equally discernible in P. It is true, again, 
 that P. is no blind partisan of Thebes, but it is not true 
 that Ephorus is one either. To what has been already 
 said as to the version in P. of the outbreak of the 
 Boeotian War, I will only add that, whether Ephorus 
 loved Thebes much or little, he loved a complicated 
 situation still more. P.'s version differs from Xeno- 
 phon, not only in being less unfavourable to Sparta, 
 but also in assuming a less simple course of events.^ 
 Meyer has discovered another inconsistency between 
 Ephorus and P. in their attitude towards Athens. 
 Ephorus has hitherto been assumed to have been 
 
 ^ Histori/ of Greece, p. 6^9 . ^ Lecture III. 
 
 ^ The complications introduced by Ephorus into the story of 
 Themistocles' exile (Diod. XL 54, 55) afford an interesting parallel. 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 107 
 
 friendly to Athens. The motives which P. ascribes to 
 the statesmen of Athens^ — ol S' h Tai9 'AOrjvaLs kmOv- 
 fjLovvre^ diraWd^ai Toif9 * AOrjvaiov^ Tfj9 iiav\ia9 Kal ttJ9 
 €iprjur]9 Kal npoayayeiu iirl to noXe/jLuu Kal rrokimpaypovuv, 
 tv avToh iK t5>v KOLvSiv II \prinaTL^ia6aL — prove him, 
 according to Meyer,^ to have been, not only no 
 Athenian, but no friend to the Athenian cause. He 
 hated Athens, and he judged her statesmen more 
 harshly than those of other states : ' ganz greif bar tritt 
 hervor, dass er fur Athen kein Herz hat, vielmehr 
 diesen Staat hasst. Daher beurteilt er es viel 
 gehassiger, als die anderen Staaten u. s. w.' Few, I 
 fancy, will agree with this. The writer is only repeat- 
 ing a commonplace of Greek political Uterature ; the 
 motives which he ascribes are similar to those which 
 Thucydides ascribes to Cleon. The commonplace may 
 be unsound, but it was, at any rate, not more unjust to 
 the Athenian democracy than the similar commonplace 
 which satisfied Ephorus.^ The sentence in question, so 
 far from being a * stone of stumbling ', is one argument 
 the more in favour of Ephorus. It is exactly such 
 a sentence as he might have penned. And Meyer is 
 forced to admit that in the preceding chapter full 
 justice is done to the policy of the moderate party and 
 its leaders, Anytus and Thrasybulus. What is true of 
 this particular objection holds good of the writer's 
 political sympathies generally. The views expressed, 
 and the attitude assumed, are just what we shoiJd 
 
 ' Hell Oxyrh. ii. 2. 
 
 ^ Theopomps Hellenika, pp. 51, 52. 
 
 Diod. XII. 39. 3 *0 8c TlepiKk^^, €i8o>s tov Brjpov ev pkv toi? 
 TToXe/xiKotf c/jyois OavpAi^ovTa rovs ayaOov^ avSpa? Sia ra? KaT€ir€iyov<ras 
 )(p€La<St Kara 8c t^v elpTjvrjv tou9 avrovs (rvKo<^a»^ov»Ta 8ia t^j' arxoKyv 
 KOI <f>06vov. 
 
108 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 expect in a writer like Ephorus, who is * ohne Leiden- 
 schaft '. Schwartz insists on the impartiality of Ephorus 
 in much the same terms as those in which the Editors 
 insist on the absence of bias in P. The latter's 
 attitude towards Athenian parties is thoroughly Iso- 
 cratean; the favourable judgement on Thrasybulus 
 and Anytus, which is implied in his description of 
 their policy, recalls the equally favourable judgement 
 on the policy of the ' moderates ' at the time of the 
 Thirty which is passed by the author of the 'Adrji/atcov 
 
 There remains one more argument to be considered ; 
 an argument for which, I fear, I am myself in some 
 sense responsible. In my article in Klio ^ I argued that 
 the chronological errors in Diodorus' narrative of the 
 years 398 to 395, especially his errors in regard to the 
 naval operations, render it difficult to suppose that he 
 was following, at first hand, a waiter so precise in his 
 marks of time as P. I am no longer disposed to attach 
 much weight to this objection. So long as Diodorus is 
 content to excerpt, he is capable of preserving the 
 correct order and the correct dates ; when, however, he 
 attempts to condense and combine, he is entering on 
 a path beset with perils. His narrative of the year 394 
 shows him at his best ; and here he is merely excerpting. 
 On the whole, he comes out well for the year 395 ; 
 but even here, in his attempt to combine the origin of 
 the Boeotian War with its subsequent course down to 
 the battle of Haliartus, he is led to omit the autumn 
 campaign of Agesilaus. Experience shows that Diodorus 
 is most likely to fall into chronological confusions where 
 
 ^ 34. 3. Anytus is mentioned as one of the leaders of the party 
 in this passage, as well as in P. 
 
 ^ Klio, viii, p. 362. See also Oxyrhynchus Papyri, vol. v, p. 137, 
 
IV THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED 109 
 
 lie has to find room for Sicilian history. This is pre- 
 cisely what has happened here. Between his last notice 
 of the war in Asia Minor (the truce between Dercylidas 
 and the Persian satraps) and his resumption of the 
 story with the arrival of Agesilaus at Ephesus, he has 
 inserted fifty-seven pages of Sicilian history, which 
 exclusively occupy the Attic years 398/7 and 397/6, 
 with the result that his narrative of the operations in 
 Asia has undergone a serious dislocation. This disloca- 
 tion is apparent in the naval warfare, both from the 
 mention of Pharax as being still vavapxos late in 396, 
 and from the fact that the number of ships under Conon's 
 command in 396/5 is the same as it was in 399/8. In 
 order to find room for his Sicilian digression, he was 
 compelled to attempt contraction and compression on 
 so large a scale that, not unnaturally, he failed to find 
 his place, just as, with far less excuse, he failed to find 
 it in 356. It looks as if no note of time, however 
 definite, could keep Diodorus from error. The dates of 
 the outbreak of the Third Messenian War and of the 
 Five Years' Truce must have been correctly given by 
 his chronographical authority ; yet he puts the former 
 four or five, and the latter three or four years too early. 
 To infer the dates from P. requires, after all, rather 
 more intelligence than to look them up in a Dictionary 
 of Dates. 
 
 So far as I am aware, no other objections have been 
 advanced which call for notice. Some of the objections 
 have turned out, upon examination, to afford arguments 
 in favour of Ephorus. This is true both of the date and 
 of the political sympathies. Others have been proved 
 to have no weight; e.g. those based on the npooifiia. 
 There remain a few which must be admitted to con- 
 stitute diflSculties in the way of the proposed identifica- 
 
110 THE CASE AGAINST EPHORUS EXAMINED iv 
 
 tion ; they do not, however, seem to me to constitute, 
 either singly or cumulatively, difficulties which are 
 insuperable. When compared, either with the argu- 
 ments in favour of Ephorus, or with the arguments 
 against Theopompus, they appear, I will not say, 
 insignificant, but, at any rate, slight. 
 
LECTURE V 
 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 
 
 Perhaps the most striking feature in the narrative 
 of P. is its entire independence of that which is given 
 by Xenophon in his Hellenics, It would doubtless be an 
 exaggeration to assert that nothing is common to the 
 two beyond the period which they cover, but it would be 
 a pardonable exaggeration. It is not merely that there 
 is so much in P. to which there is nothing correspond- 
 ing in Xenophon (roughly speaking, three-fifths of the 
 whole) ; what is still more surprising is that, where 
 the events are common to the two narratives, the differ- 
 ence in the two accounts far outweigh the agreements. 
 Hence the question of the credibility of P.'s statements 
 is one that imperatively calls for an answer, and the 
 answer must affect not only the credibility of P. ; it 
 must affect, and very closely affect, the credibility of 
 Xenophon, one of our three principal authorities for the 
 Great Age of Greek History. It is a question to which 
 widely divergent answers have been given. Judeich 
 accepts almost everything; Busolt accepts almost 
 nothing. In between these extreme views come those 
 of Meyer and the Editors, which agree, at any rate, in 
 their insistence on the value of the major part of our 
 new information. 
 
 That there should be not only divergence but con- 
 tradiction between the two historians is, in reality, not 
 at all surprising ; rather, it is just what we might have 
 expected. The divergencies and contradictions are 
 
112 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 perhaps greater, but they are much of the same kind as 
 those which are disclosed by a comparison of the 'ABrjyauoy 
 IIoXiTeia, either with Thucydides' account of the Four 
 Hundred, or with Xenophon's account of the Thirty. It 
 is not the least important result of the literary finds of the 
 last quarter of a century that we are beginning to realize 
 that our certitude in regard to the details of Ancient 
 History is largely an illusion. The great historians have 
 gone uncontradicted, because there was commonly no 
 other authority, of at all the same rank, with which to 
 confront them. But where comparison was possible 
 divergencies and contradictions were at once apparent. 
 It is seldom that a comparison between Herodotus and 
 Thucydides is possible, but there are a few cases where 
 we can set side by side their respective versions of 
 events of which they were, more or less, the contem- 
 poraries. Let us take three of them — the unsuccessful 
 attempt to plant an Athenian colony at Ennea Hodoi in 
 465, the Theban attack on Plataea which precipitated 
 the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, and the arrest 
 of the Spartan envoys to the Persian court in the 
 second year of the War. The reference to the first of 
 these events is a very brief one in Herodotus — less than 
 three lines; the references in Thucydides are slightly 
 fuller — six lines in the one passage, and three lines in 
 the other. Yet there are two contradictions on essential 
 points between the two versions of the story. In 
 Herodotus the scene of the disaster is Datus, and the 
 assailants are the Edonians {dnodaveLi' virb ^ll8a>vmv kv 
 AaTO)) ; in Thucydides the scene is Drabescus, and the 
 assailants are ' all the Thraoians ', though both Ennea 
 Hodoi and Drabescus are in Edonian territory (TrpoeX- 
 
 ^ Herod. IX. 75 ; Thucyd. I. 100 ; IV. 102. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 113 
 
 $6vT€9 8^ TTJ9 &paKr}9 €y fi€<T6y€iav SucpOdprjaav Iv ApafirjaKcp 
 rfj 'HScoviKfj VTTo Ta>u 0paKcop ^vinravTcav). The site of 
 Drabescus is more or less agreed on, but Datus, or 
 Datum, is a puzzle. If Strabo is correct in placing it 
 on the coast, the contradiction involved is a glaring one. 
 It is, however, usual to prefer the authority of Harpo- 
 cration, Ephorus, and Appian, and to identify it with 
 the later Philippi ; and, on the strength of Scylax, to 
 assume that Datus was not founded till 360, and con- 
 sequently that in the time of Herodotus it was a 
 district, and not a town. Even if all this were granted, 
 it certainly does not follow that it was a district 
 which included Drabescus. There is little evidence to 
 prove that Drabescus was in the territory of the 
 AaTTjvoi in the time of Herodotus, or of the disaster, or 
 that the district of Datus extended so far to the north. 
 Strabo, if he is to count at all, seems to imply that the 
 AarrjuoL extended southward, toward the sea, rather 
 than northward.^ In the two accounts of the Theban 
 attack on Plataea ^ (a full account in Thucydides, a mere 
 passing reference in Herodotus) there is a discrepancy 
 as to the commanders of the force. In Herodotus its 
 commander is Eurymachus ; in Thucydides he is only the 
 intermediary in the plot (npos bv iirpa^av ol npoSiSovreij, 
 while the commanders are two instead of one, Pythan- 
 gelus and Diemporus. Our third instance is connected 
 with one of the most famous passages in Herodotus, the 
 Wrath of Talthybius.^ In Herodotus the envoys are 
 three in number, in Thucydides they are six ; in 
 
 * Strabo VII. 331, Fragm. 36 ; Harpocration, Aaro's ; Appian, Bell 
 Civ. IV. 105 ; Scylax, 68 ; Isocrates, de Pace, 86 (cv Aarw Bk fivpiov^ 
 
 oTrXiTas avToiv koI ruiv crvfj.fxd)(0}v aTrwAccrav). 
 
 2 Herod. VII. 233 ; Thucyd. II. 2. 
 '' Herod. VII. 137 ; Thucyd. II. 67. 
 
114 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 Herodotus they are betrayed by Sitalces and Nympho- 
 dorus, in Thucydides by Sadocus, at the instigation of 
 the Athenian envoys, while Nymphodorus is not 
 mentioned ; lastly, Thucydides makes no mention of 
 Bisanthe (the modern Rodosto), which is given by 
 Herodotus as the scene of their capture. It would be 
 hardly fair to instance the variations between Thucy- 
 dides' account of the conspiracy of Harmodius and 
 Aristogiton and the version found in the ' KOrivalonv 
 IIoXtTeia, for here we are concerned with events which 
 were, in no sense of the term, contemporary. It is more 
 relevant to instance the discrepancies between the two 
 accounts of the Revolution of the Four Hundred. The 
 point is not whether Thucydides is right or wrong ; it 
 is that between the two accounts, one the narrative of 
 a contemporary and the other a narrative based upon 
 contemporary documents, there exist divergencies and 
 contradictions which are fundamental. I am disposed 
 to accept, in great part, Meyer's vindication of 
 Thucydides' version ; the fact remains, however, that 
 Thucydides cannot be acquitted of an error which is 
 grave, and of the omission of a detail which is essential 
 to the understanding of the movement. He has omitted 
 all reference to the scheme of the 'moderates', the iroXiTda 
 e/s Tov fjLeXXouTa xpoi^ov ; he has given the number of the 
 |yyypa0€ry as 30, in place of 10, and he has failed to 
 connect them with the irpoPovXoL appointed two years 
 before. It is a still harder task to harmonize Xenophon's 
 account of the Thirty with the story as told in the 
 'AOrjvaicov YloXnda, and possibly it is not so easy to 
 rescue his reputation ; but here again this is not the 
 point. What concerns us is the presence in the two 
 accounts of inconsistencies which are at once serious 
 and frequent. It is not, of course, necessary to conclude 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 115 
 
 that either Herodotus or Thucydides, Xenophon or the 
 authority followed by Aristotle, was dishonest, in- 
 competent, or careless. Thucydides, it may be granted, 
 was more competent and more careful than his pre- 
 decessor; but it will go badly with us if we are to 
 demand a better authority than Herodotus. Thucydides 
 himself knew well enough that it is no easy matter to 
 ascertain the truth ; even the evidence of eyewitnesses 
 is not always consistent, for men's memories are weak, 
 and their prejudices are strong : imrrovcos Sk rjifpuTK^To^ 
 SioTi ol 7rap6vT€9 ToTs €pyoLS iKcia-TOL? ov ravTa nepl tS>v airrSiV 
 4\€yov, dW Q)y iKaripcov tis evpoias rj fjLvrjfirjs €)(^oi. And, 
 we may add, the incidents and events which history has 
 to record are infinitely complex. What different 
 accounts two eyewitnesses, equally honest and equally 
 competent, will give of so simple an event as an 
 accident P A fortiori this holds good of a battle or 
 a campaign, of a political intrigue or the course of 
 a revolution. There is something almost naive in 
 Busolt's alternatives, his * Entweder ' and * Oder ' ^ ; 
 history is, often enough, too subtle for the art of the 
 historian : * subtilitati rerum longe impar.' ^ 
 
 In dealing with the question of authorship, we found 
 it necessary to begin by a critical examination of the 
 assumptions which had hitherto barred the way to an 
 impartial consideration of the claims of Ephorus. In 
 dealing with the question of authority, it is equally 
 necessary to begin by disposing of an assumption — the 
 assumption of Xenophon's infallibility. Xenophon was 
 
 * Let any one try to construct a coherent story of the wreck of 
 
 the Titanic from the evidence of the survivors. 
 ^ 'Ber netie Historiker und Xenophon,* Hermes, xliii (1908), p. 260, 
 ' Cf. Bacon, Novum Organum, i. 13 ' Syllogismus subtilitiiti 
 
 naturae longe impar '. 
 
 h2 
 
116 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE y 
 
 an eyewitness of much of what he records ; but, as 
 Thncydides warns us, eyewitnesses are not exempt from 
 error. And Xenophon was competent, in the sense 
 that he was an expert in military affairs. He was 
 competent too in the sense that he possessed the gift 
 of vivid narration. But he is quite capable of omitting 
 details which are essential ; quite capable, that is to 
 say, of telling a story which cannot be understood 
 as it stands ; he was not endowed with much political 
 insight ; and, if he was honest, he was assuredly not free 
 from the bias and prejudices of a partisan. It must 
 be remembered too that the Hellenics were published 
 some forty years after the events with which we are 
 here concerned.^ How far he had taken notes at the 
 time of all the various incidents that he records it is, of 
 course, impossible to determine. It is somewhat sur- 
 prising to find that Busolt, whose decision is wholly in 
 favour of Xenophon as against P., judged very differently, 
 fifteen years ago, as between the claims of Xenophon and 
 the 'KBr)vaL(ov HoXiTua,'^ Xenophon's version may be 
 more correct than Busolt was prepared to allow, but 
 there is good evidence that on some all-important points 
 the account in the 'A6r]vaicov IToXtTefa is to be preferred.^ 
 But we need only turn to the narrative of the battle of 
 Arginusae, or of the Trial of the Generals, to be convinced 
 that he is prone to omit details that are essential. In 
 the battle, there is clearly some omission in the account 
 of the formation of the Athenian line ; he fails to 
 
 ^ It is not necessary for my present purpose to extend this 
 statement beyond Books III-VII. 
 
 ' Hermes, xxxiii (1898). 
 
 •'' e.g. the composition of the Thirty ; the existence from the 
 first of a moderate party in their midst ; the complicity of 
 Theramenes in the proscriptions. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 117 
 
 explain how it was that the weak centre, formed in 
 single line, emerged intact and unscathed from the 
 engagement. In the trial, it hardly admits of doubt 
 that the commission given to Theramenes and Thrasy- 
 bulus, suppressed in the dispatch, was disclosed by 
 the generals in their examination before the PouXrj ; 
 Xenophon omits this fact, and thus contrives to convey 
 a most misleading impression as to the conduct of 
 Theramenes. And that is not the worst ; here, at any 
 rate, he is not quite honest ; for in the incident of the 
 sham mourners, who are stated to have been suborned 
 by Theramenes, he has said the thing that is not. 
 
 It has occurred to no one to claim infallibility for 
 Ephorus. It must be confessed that he comes before 
 us with a tarnished reputation. A writer who could 
 construct such a version of the Eurymedon — who can 
 credit Cimonwith 8vo KaXXia-Tas vUa^ Kara Tr)j/ avTTjv rjfjLipay, 
 the vavjiaxia being off Cyprus and the ncCofiaxia on the 
 banks of the Eurymedon — is a writer who must be 
 viewed with some suspicion. No doubt, he is a much 
 better authority for times nearer his own day ; still, he 
 appears Ho have combined Tissaphernes andPharnabazus 
 into one, to have transferred to the campaign of 399 
 the achievements of Thibron in 3 91, and to have strangely 
 misconceived the Spartan invasion of Elis just after the 
 end of the Peloponnesian War ; and these are errors 
 which affect a period which comes perilously near to 
 the one with which we are concerned. On the other 
 hand, there is much in Ephorus that is extremely 
 valuable. To him we owe, for instance, our knowledge 
 (so far as it is derived from literary sources) of the 
 Second Athenian Confederacy ; and, as Schwartz has 
 
 * The confusion may, however, be due to Diodorus. 
 
118 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 pointed out, his account of Dion's expedition shows 
 that he knew how to make good use of good material, 
 when it was at hand. In the period with which we are 
 more immediately concerned, the history of the naval 
 operations and of the activities of Conon, as well as the 
 notices of events in Northern Greece, must be counted 
 to his credit. To judge him by his occasional indiscre- 
 tions, however grave they may be, would be to judge 
 him most unfairly. The ancient mind was not indeed 
 favourably impressed by his battle-scenes ; Polybius 
 brings against them the charge of conventionality, and 
 against their author the charge of ignorance of the art 
 of war. If we are called upon to choose between 
 a battle in Xenophon and a battle in Ephorus, we can 
 hardly hesitate. 
 
 And now let us come to P. What impression does 
 the narrative as a whole leave upon our minds 1 Two 
 things must at once strike us — the abundance of names, 
 and the fullness of geographical detail. 
 
 The number of persons who are mentioned by name 
 is remarkable, and all, with the exception of a couple 
 of insignificant personages, are, in some sense or other, 
 attested. Among Athenians there are Thrasybulus, 
 Anytus, Aesimus, Demaenetus, Hagnias, Telesegorus, 
 Epicrates, Cephalus, Simichus, Hieronymus, and Nico- 
 phemus, besides Conon. Some of these are sufiSciently 
 obscure, but none of them are phantoms. For Aesimus 
 there is both literary and epigraphic evidence. He led 
 the procession from the Piraeus into Athens upon the 
 conclusion of the 8ia\vcr€L9 after the fall of the Thirty ; ^ 
 he was sent on an embassy, along with Cephalus, in 386, 
 and again in 377.- Demaenetus was crTpaTTjyos in 
 
 ^ Lysias, in Agoratum, § 80 ff. 
 ' a LA. ii. 15(a); 18 (&) ; 19. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OB^ THE NARRATIVE 119 
 
 Aegina in 387, and later in the same year in the 
 Hellespont;^ his exploit against Chilon, the harmost of 
 Aegina, is referred to by Aeschines.'^ The embassy of 
 Hagnias to the Great King, and his capture and execu- 
 tion by the Spartans, were recorded by Androtion and 
 Philochorus; if we want further evidence, we havelsaeus.^ 
 His colleague, Telesegorus, lacks literary confirmation, 
 but he occurs in inscriptions. An embassy of Epicrates 
 to Sardis, in 391, is mentioned by Lysias,* and Philo- 
 chorus (in the new fragment) has something to say about 
 him. Nicophemus^ is stated by Xenophon to have been 
 harmost of Cythera in 393,and his name occurs in Lysias. 
 Even Simichus and his defeat at Amphipolis are attested 
 by an excellent authority, the scholiast on Aeschines.^ 
 For Conon and Thrasybulus, Anytus and Cephalus, no 
 witnesses need be called. Of the six Thebans who are 
 mentioned by name, three are well enough known — 
 Ismenias, Leontiades, and Androclides ; the other three, 
 Antitheus, Astias, Corrantadas, are all confirmed, in one 
 way or another. Antitheus is obviously a variant of 
 the Amphitheus of Plutarch, and the Amphithemis 
 of Pausanias ;'^ Corrantadas may be recognized in 
 Xenophon's Coeratadas;^ while the name Astias is 
 found in an inscription in its Boeotian form, Faarias. 
 Of all the other names of persons that occur in the 
 fragment, the Spartan vavap^os Chiricrates and one of 
 
 ' Xen. Hell V. 1. 10 ; V. 1. 26. 
 
 ^ De Falsa Leg, 78 (niyKarevavfjuaLxqa^i XiAwvcu Cf. Hed. Oxyrh, 
 ch. iii. 
 
 ' Philoch., Fragm. 153. Cf. Hell Oxyrh. ii. 1 ; Isaeus, xi. 8. 
 
 ^ Lysias, xxvii. 
 
 >* Xen. Hell. IV. 8. 8 ; Lysias, xix. 7. 
 
 « De Falsa Leg, 34 (=HUrs S(mrces, iii. 278). 
 
 ' Plut. Lysander, 27 ; Paus. III. 9. 8. 
 
 ** Xen. Hell. I. 3. 15, 21, 22. Koppavrd^s, KotparoSos. 
 
120 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 his officers, Pancalus, alone appear to be without 
 confirmation ; except, indeed, Dorimachus, the spokes- 
 man of the mob at Rhodes. The combined effect of all 
 this, it must be allowed, is impressive. 
 
 When we turn from persons to places, the result is not 
 less satisfactory. The writer seems equally at home in 
 Asia Minor and in Greece ; and in Greece, equally in 
 Attica, Boeotia, and Phocis. The account of the first 
 campaign of Agesilaus is too fragmentary to enable us 
 to estimate the fullness of its topographical detail, but 
 the narrative of the second campaign is singularly rich 
 in this respect. In Boeotia no less than twenty places 
 are named, and in Phocis a good half-dozen. With the 
 life-like description of the raids and reprisals round 
 Mount Parnassus we may compare the picture of rural 
 Attica before the War. 
 
 The discrepancies which I propose to discuss are 
 those which afiect the first and the second campaigns of 
 Agesilaus in the year 395, and the outbreak of the 
 Boeotian War. 
 
 The discrepancies which exist between the two 
 accounts of the first campaign extend to the route as 
 well as to the engagement. In Xenophon's version 
 Agesilaus marched to the neighbourhood of Sardis by 
 the most direct route ; Tissaphernes had sent his 
 infantry into Caria, and his cavalry to the Plain of the 
 Maeander ; consequently Agesilaus' march was undis- 
 turbed by the enemy for the first three days ; it was 
 only on the fourth day that he came into touch with 
 the Persian cavalry. In P., when the account begins 
 to be intelligible, Agesilaus' line of march follows the 
 Plain of the Cayster and the mountains (Diodorus 
 enables us to identify ra oprj with Mount Sipylus) : 
 Tissaphernes follows him with a large force, both of 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 121 
 
 horse and foot (Diodorus gives the numbers as 10,000 
 cavalry and 50,000 infantry ; in P. they have to be co;i- 
 jecturally restored) ; Agesilaus, in view of the superior 
 forces of the enemy, marches with his troops formed in 
 a hollow square {ev 7r\iv6i(o), The route indicated in 
 Xenophon*s version seems to be the direct road from 
 Ephesus to Sardis, over Mount Tmolus, by Hypa^pa, 
 which was conventionally reckoned as a three days' 
 march. ^ It was the route followed by the Greeks in 
 the Ionic Revolt, and, in the reverse direction, by 
 Alexander. 2 The route indicated in P. would be a 
 much longer one. Agesilaus must have kept much 
 farther to the west, and have marched, either by Smyrna 
 or by a more direct route by Nymphaeum, to the foot 
 of Mount Sipylus, and then advanced on Sardis up 
 the valley of the Hermus. In the actual engagement 
 the result, in the version in P., is made to depend on 
 the success of an ambush ; the Persian force is seized 
 with panic and flees, and Agesilaus sends his cavalry 
 and light-armed troops in pursuit. In Xenophon, on 
 the contrary, there is no ambush ; the Persians with- 
 stand the attack of the Greek cavalry, and only yield 
 before the onset of the infantry. In P., Tissaphernes is 
 present at the engagement ; in Xenophon, he remains 
 in Sardis.^ Where two versions of the same story 
 appear to present a series of discrepancies (and I have 
 selected only the more salient inconsistencies) it seems 
 as if the task of harmonizing them were hopeless ; we 
 must make our choice between the two. Both Meyer 
 and Judeich give their decision in favour of P., chiefly 
 on the ground of the diflSculties which they detect in 
 
 ' Xen. HeU. III. 2. 11. = Arrian, Anabasis, I. 17. 10. 
 
 ^ Xen. HelL III. 4. 25 "Ore 8* avn; 17 f-^XH ^^v€to, Tia-<Ta<f>€pvq^ 
 
122 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 Xenophon's narrative. As to the route, Judeich argues 
 that troops engaged in plundering could not possibly 
 have got from Ephesus to Sardis in three days, seeing 
 that it took Alexander's army, which was much superior 
 in point of training, four days of steady marching ; and 
 he is quite within his rights in calling attention to the 
 vagueness of the terms in which Xenophon expresses 
 what he meant to say : ^ evOif? ety tou ^apSiavou tottov he- 
 fidXc Koi Tpeis fikv rjfjLipa? 8i eprjfiLas TroXefJLicoy 7rop€v6fi€V09 
 TToWa Ta iTTLTTJSeia rfj crpaTLo. elye, TJj Se rerdpTr} rJKov ol tS)v 
 iroXefii(ov tmrus. What is the point from which the 
 three days are reckoned \ Is it Ephesus, or is it the 
 arrival in the neighbourhood of Sardis? There is 
 a real ambiguity here ; and if this were all that 
 Xenophon told us, it would be natural to treat it as 
 a case of omission — as one of the many instances in which 
 Xenophon has left out a detail which is essential to 
 a correct understanding of the story. But rriv awro- 
 pcoTaTTji/ is fundamental. Agesilaus' object is to steal a 
 march on his adversary ; to reach Sardis before Tissa- 
 phernes has had time to recall his troops from Caria. 
 Xenophon's information may have been incorrect, or 
 his memory may have played him false; he cannot 
 have meant that Agesilaus followed the route ascribed 
 to him in P. I find myself unable to accept Judeich's 
 hypothesis as to the stratagem of Agesilaus, which 
 forms the subject of Polyaenus II. 1. 9.^ He interprets 
 the passage as relating to the moment in Agesilaus' 
 march when he found his advance on Sardis, up the 
 Hermus valley, barred by the army of Tissaphernes. 
 ' Hell III. 4. 21. 
 
 '^ 'Ayi^o-tAaos ctti ^apScts iXavvatv KaOrJKe XoyoTroiovs, w9 k^airaroiv 
 Ti(Ta<f>€pvrjv a-TeXXcTat fxev ^avcptus cTrt AvSta?, TpcVcTat Sk dcfyavCi}^ iirl 
 Kaptas. rjyyeXr) ravra TL(Ta<l>epvrj. 6 ftev Ilcpcnys wpfxrjore Kapiar 
 <fivXdTT€Lv, 6 Se Aa/C(ov KariSpafJLC AvSiav koI Xeiav TroXX-rjv Karicrvpev. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 123 
 
 By the aid of the ruse described by Polyaenus he gets 
 rid of the opposing force, so that he can now continue 
 his advance without molestation. The suggestion is 
 ingenious ; it helps to harmonize Xenophon s Si kprmla^ 
 iroXcfiicov 7rop(v6/jL€i^o9 with the presence of Tissaphemes 
 and his large army in P. ; it has the further advantage 
 of explaining how it is that in P.'s narrative of the en- 
 gagement the Persian force is stated to have been mainly 
 cavalry: the most that Tissaphernes could attempt, 
 when he found out the trick that had been played off on 
 him, was to hurry up his cavalry from Caria. Unfor- 
 tunately, the hypothesis requires that the stratagem 
 should find a place in P. somewhere between line 20 
 and line 60 of column v, and I have not yet discovered 
 where that place can be. In favour of P. it may be 
 argued that the route ascribed to Agesilaus is a less 
 obvious one than that which appears to be meant by 
 Xenophon, and that the advance cannot have been as 
 rapid as Xenophon appears to represent it. It is 
 possible too that Xenophon has confused Agesilaus' in- 
 tention, or rather his professed intention (npouir^v avroh 
 (wy €v6vs riyrja-OLTO Trjy <rvvTO/jLcoTdTT]v), with his actual line 
 of march. And if the identification of P. with Ephorus 
 holds good, it might be added that he was likely to 
 have correct information on such a md,tter as the route 
 of the Spartan king. If that were all, it might be 
 possible to leave the question undecided, or to decide it 
 in favour of P. But unless we are to reject in toto 
 Xenophon's account of the battle before Sardis, and of 
 the three days' unmolested march before the battle, 
 what are we to make of the statement that Agesilaus* 
 advance was closely followed by Tissaphernes with 
 a force which included a great body of infantry ? Can 
 Xenophon's account of the engagement be simply 
 
124 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 thrown overboard *? No doubt, there are difficulties in 
 his narrative ; things which call for an explanation, 
 but are not explained. That is not peculiar to this 
 passage. But the scene is vividly described, and, on 
 the whole, it is convincing. The euiSpa in the other 
 version, occurring as it does over again in the autumn 
 campaign,^ had already excited the suspicions of the 
 Editors. And if P. is Ephorus, we have here an 
 example of the conventional touch with which Polybius 
 reproaches him.^ 
 
 In regard to the campaign in the autumn of the 
 same year the problem is of a different character. 
 Xenophon affords us hardly any data as to the line of 
 march : ^ d<piK€To e/y ttju tov ^apva^d^ov ^pvyiav . . . €7ret 
 ^e d(pLKeTO eh ttjj/ TlacpXayoviav , . . avTos enl Aaa-KvXeiov 
 aTreTTopevero . . . kvravOa /xku Srj 8L€)(^eLfjLa(€. That is all ; 
 and that is not the sort of material out of which an 
 itinerary can be constructed. Xenophon is interested 
 neither in the route of Agesilaus' army, nor in the 
 incidents of the advance into the heart of Asia Minor 
 and of the return to the coast ; his interest is centred 
 on a single episode, the interview with Otys, the 
 Paphlagonian king. In P. the route is described with 
 some detail. The line of advance led Agesilaus through 
 the Plain of Thebe and the Plain of Apia, then through 
 Mysia and over the Mysian Olympus into Phrygia ; 
 after unsuccessful attempts to capture Leonton Cephalae 
 and Gordium, he turned in the direction of Paphlagonia, 
 
 ^ Hell Oxyrh. xvi. 2. 
 
 ^ Meyer thinks it incredible that Tissaphernes should have 
 remained in Sardis during the engagement. On the other hand, 
 his presence at the battle is the more obvious thing, and Xenophon 
 is therefore the less likely to have imagined his absence. On this 
 point Xenophon is not only explicit, but emphatic. 
 
 ^ Hell. IV. 1. 1 ; 4 15, 16. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 125 
 
 and finally encamped on the borders of Phrygia and 
 Paphlagonia. On his return to the coast, he marched by 
 Cius in Mysia and Mileton Teichos, and thence down 
 the valley of the Rhyndacus to Lake Dascylitis and 
 Dascylium. The topography is excellent, and there 
 seems no reason for objecting to the line of march 
 ascribed to him. The incidents of the advance and 
 retreat are told in some detail ; perhaps the ambush is 
 more in place on the slopes of the Mysian Olympus 
 than in the neighbourhood of Sardis. I see no reason 
 whatever for doubting that we have in these chapters 
 a very valuable supplement to Xenophon's meagre 
 account. In the episode which appeals so strongly to 
 Xenophon's interest, what Xenophon has to say is 
 widely different from the references in P. According 
 to Xenophon, Spithridates had been brought to 
 Ephesus, and introduced to Agesilaus, by Lysander in 
 the course of the previous year, and had accompanied 
 him on his autumn campaign ; in P. he meets Agesilaus 
 for the first time on his arrival in Phrygia.^ In 
 Xenophon, again, the Paphlagonian king, who is called 
 Otys, comes in person to the camp of Agesilaus, and 
 a page or more is devoted to a description of the inter- 
 view ; in P. he appears under the name of Gyes (FyT/y), 
 and there is no interview between him and Agesilaus. 
 Spithridates is sent by the latter into Paphlagonia, and 
 wins over the king to the Greek cause ; Gyes is induced 
 to send troops and envoys, but he does not present him- 
 self in person. Unquestionably Xenophon is right and 
 P. wrong, but the error is not a serious one. The 
 inaccuracies of which P. is guilty are precisely of 
 the kind which we expect to find in a tradition, 
 
 ' Hell Oxyrh, xvi. 4. I think the passage can only be 
 interpreted in this sense. 
 
126 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 even when it is a recent tradition. The matters of 
 moment, from the point of view of history, are the 
 presence of Spithridates in Agesilaus' army, his influence 
 with the Paphlagonian king, and the alHance which 
 was concluded between Agesilaus and Otys. Whether 
 Spithridates had accompanied Agesilaus from Ephesus, 
 and whether Otys came to the Greek camp in person, 
 are matters of little more consequence than the correct 
 form of the latter' s name, or the existence of the 
 former s daughter. To Xenophon, with his love of 
 detail and his interest in all that concerned his hero, 
 they are all-important. That P. should have been 
 misled on such points affects very slightly his general 
 credibility. 
 
 The account which is given in P. of the outbreak of 
 the Boeotian War presents some remarkable contrasts 
 to Xenophon's narrative.^ In P. it is a party among 
 the Phocians who become the instruments of the policy 
 of the war party at Thebes ; in Xenophon it is the 
 Locrians ; in P. the Thebans persuade dvSpa? tlvol^ 
 ^coKeodv to invade the Locrian territory, in Xenophon 
 they persuade the Locrians XPW"''^^ TeXia-at e/c t^? dii<j)LaPri- 
 Trja-Lfiov x^P«?, in order to provoke a Phocian invasion of 
 Locris. These Locrians are in Xenophon the Opuntian, 
 in P. the Hesperian, or Ozolian, Locrians. In both 
 versions there is a Theban invasion of Phocis, as a 
 reprisal for the Phocian invasion of Locris ; but here 
 agreement ends. In P. the Phocians, on hearing of 
 the intended Theban invasion, appeal to Sparta, and 
 the Spartans send to remonstrate with the Thebans, 
 and to invite them to submit the dispute to arbitra- 
 tion ; this appeal is rejected, and the Theban invasion 
 of Phocis follows the dismissal of the Spartan 
 
 ' Xen. Hell IIL 5 ; Hell Oxyrh, xiii. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 127 
 
 envoys. In Xenophon the invasion precedes the 
 appeal to Sparta, and there is no Spartan remon- 
 strance ; on the contrary the Spartans are eager to 
 find a pretext for war, and at once dispatch a force to 
 the aid of the Phocians. Some of these discrepancies 
 are clearly of more moment than the others. When 
 the game of political intrigue is being played, different 
 versions of what has happened are likely to obtain 
 currency, even at the time. As Greville^ once re- 
 marked, the secrets of cabinet councils are known only 
 to *the man in the street'. That the Boeotian War 
 was occasioned by a feud between the Phocians and 
 Locrians, which in its turn was due to the designs of 
 the anti-Laconian party at Thebes, was a fact on which 
 all were agreed. The exact nature of these designs 
 was a secret, and being a secret, it had to be surmised. 
 Nor does the difference between the two versions of the 
 action of Sparta present an insuperable difficulty. We 
 need not fall back on a distinction between the policy 
 of Lysander and that of his opponents. It is more pro- 
 bable that we have here another instance of omission on 
 the part of Xenophon. His statement that the Spartans 
 were eager for a pretext for attacking Thebes (dafi^voi 
 iXafiov irpocpaa-Lv a-Tparevciv int tov9 QrjPaiovs) admits of 
 being harmonized with P.'s account that they remon- 
 strated with the Theban government, although they 
 could not credit the charge alleged against them by the 
 Phocians. The Spartans welcomed the pretext, but they 
 were at the same time careful that it should be a good 
 one. Their action in the past proves them more scrupu- 
 lous in such matters than the average of Greek states. 
 They were resolved to put Thebes completely in the 
 
 ' The author of the well-known Journals, 
 
128 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 wrong. Their attitude was entirely * correct '. The 
 AcatVep Xiyeip avTovs vofiLaavTe^ ccTria-Ta is part of the 
 official note addressed to the Boeotian government ; 
 it did not, of course, express the real belief of anybody 
 at Sparta. The Spartans were under no illusions ; the 
 Theban answer to the note could be anticipated with 
 certainty ; Sparta would get her casus belli all the same. 
 Xenophon is correct in both his statements ; the Spartans 
 were eager for war, and the casus belli (the 7rp60ao-fy) 
 was found in the Theban invasion of their neighbour's 
 territory. He has omitted one stage in the proceedings 
 — historically considered, not a very important stage — 
 that is all. Xenophon is a partisan, and a strong parti- 
 san ; but he is sometimes too careless to be consistent 
 in his bias.^ The discrepancy as to the Locrians is of 
 a different kind ; no harmonist, however ingenious, can 
 identify the Opuntian with the Hesperian. This is 
 just one of those cases to which the antithesis of the 
 ' Entweder ' and the ' Oder ' applies. The one writer 
 or the other, Xenophon or P., has blundered. Meyer 
 and Busolt think that it is P., who has been misled by 
 the analogy of the Sacred War. Their explanation 
 rests upon the assumption that our fragment is to be 
 dated after the outbreak of that war. If I am correct 
 in dating it before 356 the argument falls to the ground, 
 
 ^ The Spartan invitation to the Thebans Blktjv Aa/^ySaveiv iv rots 
 a-vfifioLxoi's is objected to by Meyer on the ground that Boeotia 
 appears throughout the Peloponnesian War, not as a member of 
 the Peloponnesian League, but as completely independent. This 
 is doubtless true ; but it constitutes a strong argument (all the 
 stronger, because iv tois a-v/xfidxois must be historically untrue) for 
 Ephorus. The touch is characteristic of him. Cf. Diod. XI. 55. 4 
 Seuv (L<j>a(rav twv KOivoiv rrj<s 'EAActSos dStKTy/xarwv eivat t^v Kptcnv ovk ISCa 
 irapa tois 'A^iyvat'oig, dXX' ctti tov koivov crvveSpLov Ttov 'E\A.>Jvwr, oTrep 
 elwOei (Tvv€8p€V€LV [iv rfj iS-n-dprry] kut c/cctvov tov xpovov. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 129 
 
 and the parallel of the Sacred War becomes an argu- 
 ment for P. as against Xenophon. It is in favour of P. 
 that his account is fuller than Xenophons, and that 
 amongst his additional detail is the position of the 
 dfjLcpKr^rjTrja-ifjLos X<^pa. If it is correctly placed mpl tov 
 Uapvaaraovy ccidit quaestio. It may be added that, if P. 
 is Ephorus, the interest which Ephorus evinces in this 
 particular region renders it unlikely that he should have 
 been mistaken. As Judeich has pointed out, it was 
 not only in the Sacred War that the Ozoh'an Locrians 
 are the enemies of the Phocians. The feud between 
 the two states seems to have been perennial. Thucy- 
 dides ^ refers to it as far back as the year 426 : ivviirpaa- 
 <rov Se fjidXiara avT(o twu AoKpcoi/ (i. e. Tcoy 'O^oXo^u) 'A/JL(f>L<r(rf]9, 
 Slol to tS>v ^(oKe(ov eyOo^ SeSiore?. In 421 they are openly 
 at war,- and in 418 Diodorus^ has a decisive victory 
 of the Phocians to report : Kal ^cokcT? yap npo^ AoKpov? 
 Sieye^deyTe^, napard^ei iKpiOrjaav Sta ttju oUeLay dvSpwv 
 epiKTjaay yap ^(ok€ls, dv€\6vT€9 KoKpSiv ttXclovs \lXl(ov, Nor 
 is it incredible that Ismenias should have found 
 agents in Phocis. Whenever we get a glimpse of the 
 internal affairs of this state, we can trace the existence 
 of two parties — in the Persian War,* in the Peloponnesian 
 War,^ in the Sacred War. Phocis was one of tlie less 
 important states, but no state in Greece was too small 
 to support an opposition. And if the instruments of 
 Ismenias' policy were merely venal, there is nothing to 
 surprise us in this ; Greek history, unhappily, is only 
 too rich in analogies. The account of the Boeotian 
 invasion of the Phocian temtory, which is full of detail, 
 is hardly likely to be incorrect. It seems difficult to 
 
 » Thucyd. III. 101. « Thucyd. V. 32. 
 
 ' Diod. XII. 80. 4. * Herod. IX. 17 and 31. 
 
 ^ Thucyd. II. 9 ; III. 95 ; IV. 76. 
 
130 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 accept the detail here and to reject it for the preliminary 
 intrigues. On the whole then I am disposed to accept 
 the version in P. as substantially correct. It is a version 
 which would, no doubt, appeal more strongly to a writer 
 trained in the school of rhetoric than the simpler tale 
 which we find in Xenophon. More than one story was 
 current, that is clear. Ephorus may have preferred the 
 more complicated tale, because it appealed to his love of 
 the tortuous ; it does not follow that the simpler version 
 was the true one. 
 
 The naval operations, which are passed over in silence 
 by Xenophon, occupy a large proportion of our fragment.^ 
 The value of this portion of the narrative has been 
 generally recognized. The touches in the story of 
 the mutiny at Caunus, when taken in combination 
 with the fullness of detail which is elsewhere apparent, 
 renders it difficult to question Meyer's conclusion that 
 the author's information came, at first or second hand, 
 from an eyewitness. I do not propose to deal at any 
 length with this part of the subject. Not that it is 
 altogether free from difficulties; agreement has not 
 yet been arrived at in respect of the chronology, and 
 the list of Spartan vavapyoi presents a series of problems. 
 Five vavapyoi in three years is not easy to understand, 
 seeing that the vavapyia was held for a year ; and 
 Pharax, the first on the list, presents special difficulties 
 of his own. We meet with him in Xenophon early in 
 397 ; ^ at the beginning of P. his term of office is at an 
 end — he is 6 trporepov va-Oapy^o^ \ and in 396 he appears in 
 Diodorus at Syracuse. ^ Yet in the latter part of the 
 
 ^ 200 lines, at least, when the Papyrus was intact. 
 
 ^ Hellenics, III. 2. 12. 
 
 « Diodorus XIV. 63. 4 ; 70. 3. ^apaKtSas is the form of the 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE lai 
 
 same year he is still, according to Diodorus, on the coast 
 of Asia Minor, engaged in blockading Conon at Caunus.* 
 This particular difficulty, however, is one which affects 
 the credibility of Diodorus, rather than of P. If the 
 problem is to be solved by the assumption of a blunder, 
 it is Diodorus who must be in fault. But these are 
 points which have been fully discussed already ; all that 
 is to be said has probably been said by the Editors, by 
 Meyer, by Judeich, and by W. A. Bauer.^ And, with 
 one exception, they are points which do not affect the 
 relative credibility of Xenophon and P. The questions 
 involved are questions of interpretation, rather than of 
 criticism. The discussion seems to bring home to us 
 both the default of Xenophon and our debt to Dio- 
 dorus ; it begins to be understood that the naval warfare, 
 which in the Hellenics figures as a mere incident, was 
 of more importance in determining the issue than the 
 operations on land. Meyer's chapter on the * See- 
 krieg ' is a masterpiece of historical insight. The point 
 which affects the reputation of Xenophon is concerned 
 with his statement that Pisander was appointed to the 
 command of the fleet by Agesilaus before the beginning 
 of the latter's campaign in Phrygia in the autumn of 
 395. There is no event which he dates more precisely 
 than the appointment of Pisander as vavapyo^ : Ile/cr- 
 avBpov 8k . . . vavap\ov KaTiaTTjcre . . . Kal UcLaauSpo^ fi€v 
 dn^XOoiv ra vavTLKo. iirpamv 6 8k ^AyrjaiKao^i axriTep SpfLrjaey^ 
 €7rt Trjp ^pvytav knop^mTo. Yet, as Meyer argues, it seems 
 
 name in these two passages. The identity of Pharacidas with 
 Pharax is generally admitted. 
 
 » Diodorus XIV. 79. 5. 
 
 ' Meyer, Theopomps Hellenika, pp. 65-30 ; Judeich, Rhein, 
 Museum^ Ixvi (1911), pp. 129-39 ; Bauer, Die spartanischen 
 Nattarchen der Jahre 397/6, Wiener Studierif xxxii (1910), 
 pp. 296-314. 
 
 I2 
 
132 THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE v 
 
 impossible to reject the statement of P. that Chiricrates 
 succeeded Pollis in the command in the autumn of 395 
 (7rap€i\rj<f>6T09 i]8rj 'KeipiKpaTovs ray pads tccs tS>v AaKeSai- 
 fiovLcav KOL tS>v (TV/jLfjLd)(^coi/ , OS d(pLK€TO vavapyos Sid8o-)(^os TCO 
 UoWlSl), and that he still held the command when 
 Agesilaus went into winter quarters at Dascylium on the 
 termination of his Phrygian campaign.^ Unless we are 
 prepared to discard his whole list of vavapxoi, it is hard 
 to see how we can disregard these two statements. 
 Xenophon is wrong, and the subject of his error is, 
 from Xenophon's own point of view, not at all un- 
 important. 
 
 The life-like touches which are apparent in the 
 mutiny at Caunus can be detected in the episode of 
 Demaenetus. Here too the narrative must go back 
 ultimately to an eyewitness. The same holds good of 
 the digression about the devastation of Attica in the 
 Decelean War,^ though here the eyewitness was a 
 Theban. The episode betrays the author's interest in 
 Athens ; the digression his interest in Thebes. In his 
 view of politics, and in his judgement of political 
 motives, he shows less insight than Xenophon. His 
 view of the attitude of the two parties at Athens, the 
 yyoopL/jLOL KOL y(apUvT^s, the party of Thrasybulus and 
 Anytus, and the Stj/jlotikol^ the following of Epicrates 
 and Cephalus, is a just one ; but in the motives for 
 their hostility to Sparta which he ascribes to the leading 
 statesmen in Thebes, Corinth, and Argos, as well as at 
 Athens, he shows little grasp of the political situation. 
 Xenophon understands it better. It is just such a view, 
 a view which rests upon the surface of things instead 
 
 ^ Hell Oxyrlu xiv. 1 ; xvii. 4. 
 
 ^ Hell, Oxyrh. xii. 4. The a.7ro twv ^Xwv koX rov K€pdfiov toO tQ)v 
 oiKiwv dpidfiivoL is very striking. 
 
V THE CREDIBILITY OF THE NARRATIVE 133 
 
 of penetrating to their causes, as we should expect from 
 Ephorus.^ The spirit of rhetoric has little in common 
 with the scientific spirit. 
 
 There remains for discussion the Boeotian League. 
 This is a subject of sufficient importance to claim 
 a 'lecture to itself. 
 
 * Compare his account of the origin of the Peloponnesian War, 
 Diod. XIL 41. 1. 
 
LECTUEE VI 
 
 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE^ 
 
 The digression on the constitution of Boeotia is, 
 without doubt, the most valuable portion of the whole 
 fragment. The Editors' judgement, that it is * the most 
 valuable section of the Papyrus ', is confirmed by Meyer, 
 who pronounces it ' das Glanzstiick des ganzen Frag- 
 ments, und ganz unschatzbar '. It disposes of some long 
 debated problems ; it disposes also of some misplaced 
 scepticism. It solves the problem of the number of 
 the Boeotarchs. It proves that Poppo was right in his 
 contention that Thucydides ^ meant to reckon the eleven 
 as inclusive of the Theban two, and not as exclusive of 
 them ; that is, that he meant that their number was 
 eleven, and not thirteen ; and it proves that Wilamowdtz^ 
 and Cauer * w^ere wrong in their proposal to alter eleven 
 into seven. It vindicates the insight of Kohler in con- 
 
 ^ The chapter in the Papyrus on the constitution of the Boeotian 
 League is' discussed very fully by the Editors (pp. 224-31), 
 and by Meyer (pp. 92-102). It forms the subject of a mono- 
 graph by Glotz ('ie Conseil Federal des Beotiens,^ Bulletin de Cor- 
 respondance Helleniqite, 1908, pp. 271-8), and an article by 
 Professor Goligher in the English Historical Beview (1908). Earlier 
 theories, based on the very imperfect data which then existed, will 
 be found in Freeman's History of Federal Government, vol. i, ch. iv, 
 § 2, and in Gilbert's GriecJiiscJie Staatsaltertiimer, vol. ii, pp. 47- 
 58. Cf. also Head's Historia Numorum, pp. 291-300. There 
 is a map of Boeotia, indicating the boundaries of the /xipr) and the 
 position of the ttoXcls, at the end of Meyer's Theopomps HelleniJca. 
 
 ' Thucyd. IV. 91. « Hermes, viii (1873), p. 440. 
 
 ' Pauly-Wissowa, Beal-Encyclopddie, Bd. iii, p. 647. 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 185 
 
 necting the four fiovXai of the Boeotians {rai^ Tiorcrapai 
 fiovXai9 rrnv BomTmv) of Thucydides ^ with the four fiovXai 
 of the constitution c/y rhv fiiWovra xpot^oi^ of the Four 
 Hundred ; ^ while the use of dp^cou as a synonym for Boeo- 
 tarch disproves Freeman's contention that the dpxov of the 
 Boeotians, who appears in inscriptions of a later date, was 
 the most ancient official of the League. Its importance 
 does not end here. For the first time we are in possession 
 of tolerably full details regarding a typical oligarchy of the 
 Great Age, an oXiyapyta Io-ovo/jlos ; and for the first time 
 we have something more than a few scattered hints as 
 to a Federal League of the classical period. It is to be 
 regretted, however, that the author did not express 
 himself with more precision and with less ambiguity. 
 As is so often the case with our finds, both literary and 
 epigraphic, for each old problem that is solved a new 
 one suggests itself. Of the new problems two are 
 historical ones ; the rest relate to the constitutional 
 arrangements of the League. 
 
 Of the historical problems, the more important of the 
 two arises out of the statement that Thebes had, in addi- 
 tion to the two Boeotarchs who properly were hers, 
 two additional ones who nominally represented Plataea, 
 Scolus, Erythrae, Scaphae, and certain other places, 
 which had formerly formed part of the Plataean state, 
 but were now subject to Thebes : twv irporepou p-lv eK€ivoi9 
 (the Plataeans) avfinoXiT^vo/jiiucov^ t6t€ Se avvTeXovvTcov eh 
 ray (drj^a^. The question at once arises, What is meant 
 by npoTipov % When were the two Plataean Boeotarchs 
 transferred to Thebes ? To this question three answers 
 are conceivable ; it may have been after the surrender 
 of Plataea in 427, or after Coronea in 446, or after the 
 
 ' Thucyd. V. 38. * Aristotle, 'A^. UoX. ch. 30. 
 
136 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 secession of Plataea in 519. The Editors incline to 
 the first of these dates. The strongest argument in 
 their favour is the passage in the next chapter of the 
 Papyrus in which it is stated that at the outbreak 
 of the Archidamian War^ the inhabitants of Scolus, 
 Erythrae, and Scaphae, as well as those of Aulis, 
 Schoenus, Potniae, and some other places, migrated to 
 Thebes for fear of Athenian attack : a-vvcoKta-drja-av els avrds. 
 It seems reasonable to interpret wporepov in the light of 
 this statement. The fact that the Plataean territory 
 became definitely Theban when the town was razed 
 to the ground a year after its surrender {rriv 8e yrjv . , , 
 evifjLovTo SrjISaToi) might seem to point in the same direc- 
 tion ; it was then that the TLXaTaus became, as a matter 
 of fact, Theban. It may be added that Thebes was in 
 a better position in 427 to make good her claim to 
 a larger representation on the board of Boeotarchs than 
 in 446. Herodotus' statements that Scolus was er yrj 
 Tfj Qr]paia)i/^^ and that Erythrae was in Boeotia,^ do not 
 present insuperable obstacles. The places in question 
 may have been transferred from Thebes to Plataea in 
 
 ^ Meyer originally proposed to connect this statement with the 
 passage in Diodorus (XI. 81. 3) respecting the enlargement of the 
 TrepifioXos of Thebes just before the battle of Tanagra (ot AaKcSat/xdvtot 
 T^S fjikv Twv ®r}^aL(j)v TroXeo)? /xei'^ova tov TTipi^oXov KareaKevaa-av ', com- 
 pare with this SiTrAao-tas liroL-qa-iv tols 0>;y8a9 in P.), and to interpret 
 0)5 6 7roA.€/AOS ToZs *A6rjvaiOL<s ivia-rr} kol rot? AaKeSaLiJLOVLOL<; as a reference 
 to the Spartan expedition into Northern Greece which led to the 
 battle of Tanagra. The contrast between cv^ews ws 6 7roAe/xos 
 iv€(TTrj and ov fjirjv dXXa ttoXv ye ws rrjv AcKeAetav k-rrercLXKrav proves 
 conclusively that the reference must be to the outbreak of the 
 Archidamian War. This view, which is that of the Editors, is 
 now accepted by Meyer. He admits that P. meant the Archi- 
 damian War ; he still thinks that the o-wotKio-/>ios actually took 
 place in 457. 
 
 2 Herod. IX. 15. ^ Herod. IX. 19, 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 137 
 
 479, and recognized as part of the UXaTaus after Coronea. 
 The real difficulty lies in the fact that it is implied by 
 Thucydides ^ that Oenoe was the frontier town before 
 the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War : rj y^p Oiv6rj ova-a 
 kv fjieOoptoLs TTJs *Attiktjs Kal Boicor/iay €r€rc(j(i(rro, Kal avrSt 
 ^povpia> ol 'AOrjvaToi €\pcoi/To onSre TrSXefios KaTaXdfioi. 
 Meyer is therefore certainly right in his contention 
 that Scolus and the rest must have been surrendered by 
 Athens, and been recognized as Theban, after Coronea. 
 It was then, according to his view, that Thebes received 
 the two extra Boeotarchs. The position assigned to 
 Plataea — 8vo Sh ifnkp nXarateo)!/ kol XkcoXov Kal 'EpvOpcov Kal 
 %Ka(j>aiv Kal rcov dXXoov ^(opicou tcov irpoT^pov fi€u €K€lpois 
 crvfiTToXiTevofjLevcov — militates to some extent against this 
 view ; if Meyer is correct, the Theban claim was based 
 on the possession of Scolus and the other towns, and 
 it was anterior to, and independent of, the possession of 
 Plataea. It may also be objected that this territory 
 minus Plataea could hardly justify two additional 
 Boeotarchs. A third view which is tenable does not 
 appear to have found supporters. Thebes may have 
 claimed and obtained the two Plataean Boeotarchs 
 when Plataea seceded in 519. We are ignorant oi 
 the constitution of the League at that date ; it must 
 have differed in its arrangements from the scheme 
 adopted in 440. But there was continuity of a kind ; 
 the League as constituted in 446 must have borne 
 sufficient resemblance to the League at the end of 
 the sixth century to render plausible the assertion 
 that the federal system in the latter half of the fifth 
 century embodied ra kolvo, tS>v iravToav 'QoioiyrS>v wdTpta. 
 There must have been Boeotarchs ; a League without 
 
 ' Thucyd. II. 18. 
 
138 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 Boeotarchs is hardly conceivable ; and the number 
 eleven may well have been traditional. If Plataea had 
 two representatives on the board, these places must 
 have been declared vacant, and Thebes may easily have 
 been in a position to secure them. Plataea by her 
 secession had forfeited her rights ; the nXarau? had 
 become de iure Qr]PaL9, though nearly a century was to 
 elapse before it was de facto incorporated — elrriv HXaTauSa 
 QrfpatSa 7roLrj(r€T€.^ irporepov would then mean ' before 
 519 '. If this view is correct, it follows that the moral 
 to be drawn from the history of the League is not the 
 moral drawn by Freeman. Starting from the assump- 
 tion that Thebes had two Boeotarchs only throughout 
 the history of the League, he inferred that the lesson 
 which that history taught was the danger of the 
 material, as opposed to the constitutional, preponderance 
 of a single member of a Confederacy. Thebes became 
 the mistress of the League, ' not because her formal 
 position was at all extravagant or anomalous ', but 
 because she stood so far above the other cities in respect 
 of wealth and population. But if Thebes, from 519 
 onwards, had four Boeotarchs out of eleven, her formal 
 position must have constituted a standing menace to 
 the minor towns. It fully explains how she was enabled 
 to become ' first the President, and then the Tyrant, of 
 the League '. 
 
 The minor historical problem is connected with 
 Chaeronea. In Thucydides ^ it appears as dependent 
 on Orchomenos at the time of the battle of Delium — 
 Xaipcoveiau fj ey 'OpxofLevoy ^vvtcXcT: in P. it is independent 
 of Orchomenos, and appoints a Boeotarch in rotation 
 with Copae and Acraephnion. The Editors suggest 
 
 ' Thucyd. III. 58. =^ Thucyd. IV. 76. 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 139 
 
 that the separation of Chaeronea from Orchomenos, some 
 time or other between 424 and 305, was due to a desire 
 on the part of Thebes to weaken her rival ; in this view 
 Meyer concurs. I find some difl&culty in following this 
 argument. If the loss of Chaeronea had been accompanied 
 by a reduction of the representation allowed to Orcho- 
 menos, all would be easy ; but that was not the case. 
 Orchomenos still has two Boeotarchs, and it can never 
 have had more. To allow it to retain the same number 
 of representatives, both on the board of Boeotarchs and 
 in the federal fiovXri, for a diminished territory seems an 
 odd way of weakening its influence. The explanation 
 must be sought elsewhere. 
 
 The problems which are connected with the constitu- 
 tional detail are of greater importance and of higher 
 interest. We know much that we knew nothing of 
 before, and some things that were doubtful are now 
 certain. There remains much, however, that needs 
 elucidation. What were the four povXatl Were they 
 local, or federal, or both ? How did the system work 1 
 How is the relation of the one PovXrj to the other 
 three to be conceived ? What was the census — the 
 nXfjOo? Ti ^prj^idTOiv'i What was the relation of the 
 TToXts to the ii^pos 1 These are the questions that call 
 for an answer. If help is to be looked for anywhere, it 
 is most likely to be obtained from that constitution 
 which appears to have been modelled on the Boeotian, 
 the TToXLTeia e/y top fieXXovra \p6vov of the Four Hundred.^ 
 
 Were the four PovXai local, or federal, or did the 
 fourfold system apply both to the federal and the 
 local councils ? There can be no doubt as to what 
 Thucydides meant ; rats Tecraapcri fiovXaT? rair Boia>Ta>if 
 cannot possibly, in a writer so careful as Thucydides, be 
 * Aristotle, *A^. UoX, ch. 30. 
 
140 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 the equivalent of rais ria-a-apa-L povXai? rah trap €Kd<TTrf 
 T<£)v Kara ttjv BoLcoTiav TroXeooi/. Thucydides understood 
 that the four povXat^ whose opposition to the proposed 
 treaty of alliance proved fatal to the policy of the 
 Boeotarchs, were synonymous with the federal council. 
 And there can be no doubt as to the meaning of P. 
 He conceives the four fiovXai as purely local bodies : 
 ^(rau KaOea-TrjKViai fiovXal t6t€ rirrapes irap iKda-Tj] rS^v 
 TToAecor. He knows of a federal council as well, but 
 four fiovXai have no place in its organization. He does 
 not say that the scheme of four povXai did not apply to 
 the federal council.^ That is quite true, but it is quite 
 irrelevant. What he does say is that ra p,\v tSia 
 8i€T€Xovu ovTco 8ioLKovfjL€i/oL, whorc ovT(o refcrs to the four 
 PovXaij TO Se tS)v Bolcotcov tovtov rjv rov Tpoirov avuTeray/xevoif^ 
 where tovtov tov Tpoirov refers forward to a description 
 of the federal arrangements, in which the four ^ovXat 
 play no part.^ We cannot shirk the issue. Either 
 Thucydides is wrong or P. is wrong ; their statements 
 cannot be reconciled. If the issue were simply between 
 the authority of Thucydides and the authority of P., 
 few would hesitate. But the issue is a different one ; 
 we are called upon to choose between the authority of 
 an obiter dictum, an incidental remark, of Thucydides, 
 and the authority of a detailed account in P. We have 
 no reason to suppose that Thucydides had any special 
 interest in, or any special knowledge of, the Boeotian 
 constitution ; we have every reason to suppose that P. 
 had both. The question cannot be decided off-hand by 
 the weight of Thucydides' authority ; the weight of 
 authority is altogether on the other side. Thucydides 
 
 ^ See Goligher, English Historical Mevieiv, 1908. 
 ^ Glotz's arithmetical argument does credit to his ingenuity ; 
 but his premisses are uncertain, and his inference precarious. 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 141 
 
 had heard that the negotiations had broken down 
 owing to the opposition of the four fiovXai^ with which 
 the last word lay. What more natural than that he 
 should assume that these four fiovXai, aintp anav rh Kvpo^ 
 t^ovcTL^ were a federal council 1 It is objected that the 
 four fiovXaij aiTrep dnau to Kvpo9 exovm, whose consent is 
 necessary to the conclusion of a treaty, must be a federal 
 body ; that questions of vital importance cannot have 
 been reserved for the decision of local councils ; that if 
 they were, it is diflScult to see what could be the 
 functions of the federal council ; that if each of so large 
 a number of separate bodies, as is implied in four fiovXai 
 in each TroXty, had to be separately consulted, and had 
 separately to give its assent, on all important matters, 
 the machinery would have been so intolerably cumbrous 
 that the constitution could never have worked. Such 
 objections have little weight. When Thebes sought to 
 reconstitute the federal union after Coronea, the minor 
 Boeotian states would naturally demand some guaran- 
 tees, and Thebes would as naturally be compelled to make 
 some concessions. In order to overcome the reluctance 
 of the lesser cities to surrender any share of their 
 independence, it was agreed that the consent of each 
 and every n6Xi9 in the Federation should be essential in 
 all questions of foreign policy. Meyer brings forward 
 the analogy of the United Provinces ; to English minds 
 the analogy that will most readily suggest itself is that 
 of the United States. In America, as in Boeotia, the 
 sentiment of autonomy was strong : the separate States 
 were in no mood to see their rights merged in those of 
 the federal body. Guarantees were demanded, and 
 concessions had to be made ; the consent of the legisla- 
 tures of three-fourths of the States was the condition 
 required for any amendment of the constitution. 
 
142 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 Could any procedure be conceived more cumbrous ? 
 So cumbrous, that it has proved impossible to amend 
 the constitution except at the point of the sword. Yet 
 the provision was deliberately adopted" by a people 
 highly endowed with political intelligence. The cum- 
 brous character of the procedure is an argument for, 
 not against, P/s statement. When the machinery for 
 ascertaining the will of the deliberative body is 
 cumbrous, it is inevitable that the real power should 
 pass into the hands of the executive. This is what 
 happened in Boeotia. In theory sovereignty was 
 vested in the four ^ovXai, but in practice their assent 
 had come to be treated as a form. The federal execu- 
 tive took it for granted in 421 : ol ^oicoTapxat olofievoL 
 TTjv PovXr)v (here synonymous with ras- Tecra-apas /SouXas), 
 Kciv /jLTj dncoa-LV, ovk dXXa yjrrjcpLeia-dai rj a <r<j)L(n irpoSLayvovTe? 
 -rrapatvova-iu. For the federal PovXrj there was doubtless 
 plenty of administrative work to transact.^ On this 
 essential detail of the constitution I am glad to find 
 myself in agreement with the Editors and with Meyer. 
 
 The first question has been answered ; the four 
 PovXai were local. How did the system work '? How 
 are we to conceive the relation of these four bodies to 
 each other ? What was the object of a system which 
 at first sight seems so strange ? 
 
 The analogy of the Athenian constitution (17 e/y tov 
 fiiXXovTa xpovov'^) renders it clear that all the qualified 
 citizens were members of the four PovXat. This is also 
 the natural interpretation of the language of P., though 
 what he says is not quite free from ambiguity : ^ovXal 
 T^TTap^S , . . S)p ov\ dwaaL toTs iroXhaLS k^rjv fi€T6\€iJ/ dXXa 
 
 * No argument is to be based on the plural form — ra o-vviSpia 
 Ttt KOLva (rvv€Koi6L^€v. It moFely means ' meetings of the council '. 
 2 Aristotle, 'A^. HoX. ch. 30. 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 148 
 
 T019 K€KTrjfiivoL9 ttXtjOSs tl xprjfjLdTODt/. Each of the four 
 PovXai is said to have stood, in its turn, in a probou- 
 leutic relation to the other three, to which its proposals 
 had to be submitted : Kar^ fi€po9 iKdarri wpoKaOrjfiet/rj Koi 
 TTpopovXevova-a Trept Twy Trpaypdrmv da^(f)(piv eh t^9 rpei?. 
 What does this precisely mean ? In the Athenian con- 
 stitution, in which the four fiovXai must certainly have 
 been borrowed from the Boeotian, the whole body of 
 qualified citizens are to be divided into four PovXai, and 
 each fJLepo9, or Xij^i^y is to constitute the PovXrj for the 
 time being, the term of office being a year. It is not 
 provided that it should submit its proposals to the other 
 three AiJ^ety, but there is the analogous provision cTrcto-Aca- 
 Xitu €KaaTov e7r€i(TKXrjTov ; i.e. that each member of the PovXrj 
 which is in office for the time being may call in any 
 member of the other three Xrj^eis as an assessor. I con- 
 ceive therefore that in the Boeotian constitution the PovXri 
 which is described as npoKadrjfifvr) Kal wpopovXivova-a held 
 office for a year ; its resolutions had to be submitted, 
 as TTpoPouXevfjLaTa, to the other three ; and these wpo^ovXev- 
 fiara only acquired the form of law when they had 
 been ratified at a plenary meeting of all four fiovXai: 
 OTL S' eSo^eu kv airdaais tovto Kvpiov kyiyv^TO^ Hence the 
 four povXat were, from another point of view, a single 
 povXri ; this is probably the explanation of the transition 
 in Thucydides from tols Tecra-apai fiovXah to t^v PovXrji/ : 
 0i6p.€V0L T^v PovXriv ovK dXXa '^rjcpLuaOai. The problem 
 
 which this system was designed to solve was not peculiar 
 to the circumstances of Boeotia, or to the conditions of a 
 Greek oligarchy. It had to be solved in democratic 
 Athens, and it confronts us at the present day. It is 
 
 ' €v ttTrao-ais is the reading of the Papyrus, but cv is bracketed by 
 the Editors. It appears to me correct. 'E*' airdaai^ means * ratified 
 at a plenary meeting '. 
 
144 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 the problem of reconciling the two principles of efficiency 
 and responsibility ; how to harmonize efficiency of 
 administration with the responsibility of all. We solve 
 it in our own way, by our system of committees. The 
 efficiency of administration in an English County Council 
 is secured by the delegation of the duties of the whole 
 Council to a series of committees ; they do the real 
 work, and report; but the recommendations of the 
 report are mere recommendations, until they have 
 received the sanction of the whole Council at one of its 
 stated meetings : otl 8ok€L kv aTrdcrais tovto Kvpiov yiyverai. 
 At Athens it was solved by the institution of the 
 Clisthenean PovX-fj : the povXri was, in effect, a committee 
 of the €KKXrj(rLa, but it was a committee for all purposes. 
 In Boeotia there was no kKKXrja-ta ; in an oligarchy of 
 this type all qualified citizens are PovXevraC^ just as in 
 a democracy they are all eKKXrja-Laa-Tai. Where the 
 census was a low one, the whole number of qualified 
 citizens would form too large a body for efficient 
 administration, and it would be unreasonable to call 
 upon all such citizens to give up their time to the 
 service of the State ; it would not be unreasonable to 
 expect that they should take their turn, in Boeotia 
 once in four years, in the work of administration. 
 
 This brings us to the next question, that of the 
 census. It is peculiarly unfortunate that our author 
 should have omitted to specify the 77X^609 xpr]iidT<ov. 
 There is no detail of the constitution which it is more 
 important to determine. But if it is not given, it can, 
 I think, be inferred with certainty. The census may 
 have been reckoned in money, but it must have been 
 the equivalent of a hoplite census. In Boeotia, as at 
 Athens in the days of Draco,^ dneSiSoTo rj iroXiTda rols 
 
 ' I should not wish this to be taken as implying a belief in the 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 145 
 
 SirXa nap€xon€voi9. This was the census under the Four 
 Hundred, in name at least, and after their fall, in 
 reality : ra Trpdy/iaTa 7rape8<oKau T0T9 7r€UTaKL(T)(^iXioi9 T019 Ik 
 tS>v SwXoiv.^ But the case does not rest upon the 
 Athenian parallel. That the qualification was the 
 census of a hoplite may be inferred from what is 
 one of the most distinctive features in the constitution. 
 It is apparent that the organization of the League 
 served two purposes at once, a civil and a military. 
 The fiipos is a unit for civil purposes ; it determines 
 the number of Boeotarchs, the number of members of 
 the federal fiovXrj and of the federal courts of law, and 
 the distribution of financial burdens : 
 
 AxrAcoy 8e S-qXcoaaL Kara tov dpyovra kol tcou koivcov 
 diriXavop Kal r^y d(T(j>opas kiroiovvTO kol SiKaairas) enepnov 
 Kal fjL€T€T\ov dirdpTCov o/zo/cDy Kal root/ kuko^v Kal t(ov dyaOatv, 
 
 It is also a unit for military purposes ; it serves to 
 determine the contingents of cavalry and infantry. 
 More than that, the Boeotarchs are at once the civil 
 executive of the League and the commanders of the 
 federal army. Is it likely that in Boeotia, where hoplites 
 and cavalry are alone accounted of, there would be one 
 qualification for military purposes and another for civil, 
 when the unit of organization was one and the same for 
 both purposes ? A further consideration may be urged. 
 To Aristotle it seemed evident that ol rau oirXoav Kvpioi, Kal 
 
 historical existence of the constitution of Draco ; at least of such 
 a constitution as figures in Aristotle, 'A^. IIoA.. ch. 4. 
 
 * ^17] iXarrov rj TrevruKLo-xi-XLOL^ was the provision in the constitu- 
 tion ; the speech pro Poly sir ato, [Lysias], xx. 13, proves that 
 this was very liberally interpreted after the fall of the Four 
 Hundred : v^dv j/oyc^icra/xcVwv TrevraKio^tXtois TrapaSovvai Toi Trpay/iara, 
 KaraXoyevs tiv iwaKia-xiXiov^ KarcXe^cv. 
 
 1624 K 
 
146 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 fiivHv fj fiT} fiiveLv Kvpioi ttjv irokLTetav,^ Not many con- 
 stitutions in Greece lasted so long as the Boeotian : 
 after an existence of nearly sixty years it was destroyed 
 by external force. And in Boeotia it was the hoplites 
 who were Kvpioi tS>v ottXcou. If they were excluded from 
 political rights, why should they have acquiesced so 
 long in their exclusion "? In Periclean Athens it is 
 different. There it is not the hoplites who are Kvpioi 
 tS>v ottXodu ; it is the vavriKos 6)(Xo9 6 ttjv Svua/jLiv wepLTiOeh rfj 
 TToXe/. For this very reason the work of the reactionaries 
 in 411 could not have been permanent. It is true that 
 we hear of <TTd<ns in Boeotia during this period ; there 
 was an opposition there as in every Greek state, except 
 Sparta. And the opposition probably called itself 
 democratic ; but the antithesis of ' the few ' and * the 
 many ' in Boeotian politics is not primary but secondary. 
 The real antithesis is of another sort ; the rival ideals 
 in Boeotia are those of federalism and autonomy. 
 
 If this conclusion be admitted, it is clear that our 
 current ideas with regard to the G-reek oligarchies will 
 need some modification. It is clear that in Boeotia 
 oligarchy — oXiyap^ta larSvofios — corresponded to what we 
 are accustomed to call (perhaps I should say, what we 
 were accustomed thirty or forty years ago to call) con- 
 stitutional government, rather than to anything that we 
 understand by oligarchy. Upon the basis of a hoplite 
 census, the number of qualified citizens could hardly 
 have fallen short of 15,000. The hoplites and cavalry 
 together give us over 12,000 ; and to these we must 
 add those who were over age for military service. The 
 number of adult males in Boeotia, who under a demo- 
 cratic constitution would have been qualified for the 
 
 ' Arist. Fol 1329 A. 10, 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 147 
 
 francbise in virtue of free birth, cannot well have 
 exceeded 40,000.^ Thus the number of full citizens under 
 the oligarchical constitution would amount to more than 
 one-third of those who would have had the full citizen- 
 ship under a democratic constitution. It is much the 
 same sort of proportion as that which results from 
 a comparison of the number of those who had the 
 franchise in Belgium before the revision of the consti- 
 tution in 1893 with the number of those who are 
 qualified under the present law. Yet I can remember 
 the time when the old unreformed constitution of 
 Belgium was regarded as one of the most liberal in 
 Europe.^ Oligarchy in the Greek world in the middle 
 of the fifth century had little in common with the 
 8vva<TT€Lai of an earlier epoch, or with the decarchies 
 for which Lysander was responsible. Constitutional 
 historians have been inclined either to ignore the 
 diffusion and the permanence of oligarchy in Greece, 
 or else to fall back upon such superficial explanations as 
 the influence of Sparta. If oligarchy was so firmly 
 rooted, even in the Great Age of Greek History, it may 
 well have been because it rested, in most cases, upon 
 the will of the people. * The people ' in such a case can 
 only mean the people who count. Grattan's Parliament 
 regarded itself, and was regarded generallyj^as expressing 
 
 ^ Beloch, Bevolkerung, p. 163, puts the number at 29,000. His 
 calculation is based, however, upon the numbers at the battle of 
 Delium. Our new evidence shows that the total number, both of 
 those of the hoplite class and of the whole citizen-body, must 
 have been materially higher than Beloch supposed. A proof, if 
 proof were needed, of the uncertainty of such 'statistics '. 
 
 ' The law of 1848 fixed the property qualification for the 
 parliamentaiy franchise at 20 florins. 
 
 ^ A remark of Archbishop Beresford, the Primate at the time 
 of the Disestablishment, serves to illustrate this : * The Irish 
 
148 THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE vi 
 
 the will of the people of Ireland. The claim was not 
 ill founded ; it did represent the will of the people in 
 the sense of the people who counted. In Ireland, at 
 that epoch, the only people who counted were the Pro- 
 testants ; they counted, not in virtue of their numbers, 
 for they were in a minority, but in virtue of their 
 monopoly of the land, the wealth, the intelligence, and 
 the energy of the country. In Greece the people who 
 counted differed in different states ; in Boeotia and the 
 greater part of the Peloponnese they were in the main 
 a class of small farmers — avTovpyof^ ; and it is this class 
 that furnishes the military forces of the state. This 
 was largely true of Athens in the time of Clisthenes ; 
 the hoplites were Kvpioi Ta>v ottXcov, and they consequently 
 needed no constitutional safeguards for their position 
 of privilege. In the age of Pericles the people who 
 counted were of another class, and not in Athens only. 
 There remains the question. What is the relation of 
 the fiipo9 to the irSXis % In the account of the constitu- 
 tion, so far as it affected local interests (tcl iSia), the four 
 PovXai are stated to have existed irap iKda-TTf t(£>v wokemv. 
 In the account of the federal system the /le/joy takes the 
 place of the TroAi?, though even here the ttoKi^ reappears. 
 What are we to understand by a iroXis 'i Could there be 
 more than one ttoXls in each fiipos ? Evidently there 
 could be ; Lebadea, Coronea, and Haliartus are noXeis, 
 yet they constitute only one fjiipo? between them ; and 
 the same holds good of Chaeronea, Copae, and Acraeph- 
 nium. But how are we to class Hysiae, Thisbe, and 
 Eutresis ; or again, Scolus, Erythrae, and Scaphae? The 
 latter, as being x^P^^ dTeixio-ra, can hardly have ranked 
 
 people used to mean the Protestants ; now it means the Papists.' 
 Bishop Wilberforce's Life, vol. iii, p. 286. 
 1 Thucyd. I. 141. 
 
VI THE BOEOTIAN LEAGUE 140 
 
 as TToXcfy ; the former must almost certainly have been 
 TToXiis avvTcXii?, which was the status of Chaeronea in 
 424. It follows, therefore, that the four fiovXat existed 
 in not more than ten cities. A provision that ten 
 separate bodies should be individually consulted was 
 inconvenient ; it is not inconceivable. 
 
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